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Marquette Parks and Rec applies for national recognition
The city of Marquette has been recognized for the things that residents already know, like that it’s family-friendly, great for outdoors fans, and a good place to retire.
Those are some of the reasons behind its awards in recent years, which have included being named one of the “Top Five Places to Retire” by CNN, listed in the top ten percent of “Top 200 Towns For Sportsmen” by Outdoor Life Magazine, chosen as a Tree City USA by the Arbor Day Foundation, and called one of the “Best Small Cities to Raise a Family” by Forbes magazine. Now, the city of Marquette is applying for another award: the 2012 National Recreation and Park Association’s Gold Medal Award designation.
This designation, described in a Marquette parks department memo as “equivalent to an Academy Award” for parks, would put the city’s parks department in the national spotlight for providing the best possible resources to a community with a population less than 25,000.
According to Karl Zueger, assistant city manager and community service director, application for this award and recognition for other awards wouldn’t happen without t he support and involvement of the community, and that’s something he hopes comes across in the application.
“It’s really the things that we’ve already done; what we’re trying to do is to tell our story and tell what our community has already done…I think the onus is on us to paint that picture onto the canvas of the great things that this community has,” Zueger said. “We already had one meeting with our partners, so really we’re trying to put together the components from those partnerships that we have that will help us tell the story.”
The application process for this award is being completed with the help of fellowship student Sean Hobbins from Northern Michigan University’s public administration graduate program.
“This is something that we considered last year, and decided that we didn’t have the ability to go through the process because it is quite involved in terms of gathering the information and bringing the partners together to have a complete application. This year we were fortunate to have a fellow from NMU who is interested in the project and has taken the project on and has done a great job,” Zueger said.
The first element of the application process is answering eleven comprehensive questions that consider every aspect of the city’s parks and recreation. The questions are due March 2. From all of the applications, four finalists are chosen for the competition on April 27. Those finalists have to make a video that demonstrates these aspects of their town by July 13, and then an award ceremony will take place October 16 to 18 at a conference in Anaheim (California).
At a meeting January 9 at Lakeview Arena, Hobbins and others i n the department talked with community members about the importance of this application and how they plan to approach the various questions. For a question on how the department has responded to challenges, they plan to highlight how Marquette has evolved from a community based on industry to a focus on recreation and leisure.
“Marquette is unique because we transformed our shorelines from contaminated factory districts to popular beaches and parks,” Hobbins said. “For example, Mattson Park used to be a blighted coal dock in the harbor and now it is home to the U.P. Beerfest, Seafood Fest, Art on the Rocks, Bluesfest, International Food Fest, and many other events. We also have made a dedicated effort to keep the shorelines public and available for everyone to use. This is in contrast to, say, Traverse City where much of the shoreline is privatized.”
For the question on how the city has enhanced parks and recreation to meet community needs, they’ll discuss the efforts to change Shiras Pool at Presque Isle into a wildlife habitat with the help of the MooseWood Nature Center. And for how the department works to address the needs of special populations, there is the senior center, which provides activities and resources for the city’s older adult population. These, among other comprehensive answers, are what the committee plans to submit before March 2.
If Marquette wins this designation, it would improve the likelihood of the city receiving grants in the future and also enhance the city’s and even businesses’ marketability. These benefits would be the result of the prestige of being voted the best in this national competition.
“I think any time you can get national exposure, it always helps for future grant opportunities and promotes confidence in what you’re trying to promote as a community,” Zueger said. “So when we pursue federal and state grants, it always helps to be able to say we’ve achieved the highest ranking amongst our peers on a national level. That bodes quite well in terms of those funding sources having confidence in you doing what you say you’re going to do.”
The NRPA Web site states the gold medal award honors communities that demonstrate “long-range planning, resource management, and agency recognition.” The 2011 Gold Medal Award recipient for a city with a population less than 25,000 was the City of Fairfax Parks and Recreation Department in Virginia.
“When you look at the communities that have won this in the past, they are incredible communities that are recognized on the national scale in a number of ways, and I think the support that this community has provided … puts (Marquette) in a very, very competitive position with any of those communities, and I sincerely feel as if we’ll be in the top four when they pick those,” Zueger said.
––Lucy Hough
Committed to change
Sawyer Community Alliance works on building a community
In 2007, WLUC-TV6 aired a three-part special titled, “The Sawyer Dilemma” that painted a sad image of garbage-lined streets and a community with an increasing number of safety and financial concerns.
Since then, Sawyer’s residents have struggled to overcome the negative stigma and have fought to change people’s minds about where they live.
Although Sawyer has stayed mostly out of the media spotlight for the past five years, it is not because there’s nothing happening––according to former Marquette County  Commissioner Bob Struck, what’s now happening in Sawyer actually could serve as a model for other communities.
It all started, he says, with a group of people dedicated to changing Sawyer’s image.
“In January 2009, I talked to people that seemed committed to Sawyer and told them to find the people that want to make a difference and let’s get together,” says Struck.
The following month, Struck walked into a room of forty people.
“I said, ‘Here’s the deal. We know the issues and we’re still all talking about the same thing and nothing is getting done. Let’s do it a different way,’” he says. “I wanted a group who could work on solving issues that have been discussed, a group to work toward being self-sufficient.”
Struck says he proposed a question to the group – What does Sawyer need? He then asked them to write their answers down.
Among the prioritized needs were making a Sawyer Web site, promoting positive public relations and images, establishing a recycling center and youth programs, addressing the issue of abandoned buildings and increasing police patrol.
The group met again in two weeks and went over the list together, Struck says. “We used that as our list to accomplish things, and we followed what we said we were go ing to do.”
The Sawyer Community Alliance was born. Scott Bammert, corporate manager of Macasu Inc., is a member.
“There are so many great families at Sawyer, it only made sense to be a part of the Sawyer Community Alliance, to make sure the needs of these families and the community were addressed,” he says.
Struck says the group has maintained its focus for the past two years.
“Our single biggest accomplishment is that we’ve continued to have regular, monthly meetings of twenty to thirty people who are committed and working off the same game plan; a group working together that trusts each other and truly wants to make a difference in Sawyer. Some other well-intentioned groups never lasted this long,” he says.
The group also has moved forward by taking their needs off paper and putting them into action. Struck says members of the group divide into mini-task forces th at take on one issue each, and they’ve experienced real results.
Among the alliance’s accomplishments are cleaning up garbage and painting the buildings around Little Trout Lake, boarding up windows and doors of vacant buildings, establishing a larger police presence around Sawyer, fixing dim or broken streetlights, replacing guard rails and street signs and making a pocket park with playground equipment.
“They don’t need a politician to solve their problems. If you keep depending on the government, it’s not going to get solved,” says Struck. “We’ve gotten representatives from Forsyth Township and West Branch Township to attend our meetings, we’ve had county members come, too, to answer our questions. We’ve created an entity that people can come to with concerns.”
Struck is no longer a commissioner but says he remains involved with the group and they wanted him to stay involved. His day job is executive director of U.P. EMS.
“I want to see c ommunities be safe. I’ve been a politician and I have an idea how to be successful, so I like to offer my advice,” he says. “Sawyer doesn’t have the history of a public community. Sawyer was established in the last dozen years and it’s going to have problems because it doesn’t already have the culture of Ishpeming or Negaunee.”
Currently, Sawyer has 3,000 residents. Struck says if alliance members continue to dedicate themselves and others, the community will stay on track.
“It’s a tough economy and it’s tough to grow a business in the U.P. anyway. The county took a risk establishing a community, but I think fifty years down the road, Sawyer will be successful,” he says.
Bammert says things have changed since “The Sawyer Dilemma.”
“The image of Sawyer has improved since 2007. There are area cleanup days throughout the year and the housing developer who had troubles keeping up with the utilities is no longer at Sawyer.
“The Sawyer Community Alliance will continue to work on addressing the needs at Sawyer, which is still a growing community, and to improve on the negative perception of what some people think about it,” he says.
––Becky Greiner
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