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The idea of sharing resources and having an umbrella organization is not new, but not a lot of <br />cities are doing it. It is a heavy lift. It is a challenge that I am up to and I know the team is as <br />well. Mesa, Arizona has Parks, Recreation and Commercial Facilities, another city has Parks <br />and Public Facilities, Spokane has Cultural Resources. I thought that commercial facilities <br />wasn't exciting enough, so we came up with Venues, Parks and Arts. <br />It will be one (1) department that is somewhat similar to the Department of Public Works which <br />is the umbrella, with multiple divisions under it. We'll have a Facilities and Grounds Division, <br />Recreation, Venue Operations, then X that has yet to be named. <br />The Facilities and Grounds Division will be responsible for all of the parks, the recreation <br />centers, the Morris, Palais, Century Center, and the downtown streets, parking garages and the <br />various islands and corridors. This year we've put a focus on the Westside Main Streets <br />program, so we've seen that pop up, and we'll make sure the roundabouts are well- maintained <br />and look good as entry points to the City. <br />There will be functional units to service those facilities. The Recreation Division is where we <br />house all of our rec center programming, the golf unit, athletics leagues, camps, all of the <br />O'Brien Fitness Center programming, and things of that nature. That looks similar to what it <br />looks like today, it will just be a more organized organizational chart. <br />The Venue Operations section will lag behind. We are looking at implementing everything else <br />this coming January, but this portion, the combined management of the Morris, Palais and <br />Century Center, and it will not take place until January 1, 2018. There are some logistical <br />contracts that we have to work to get aligned to make that a reality. In the meantime, Michelle <br />DeBeck is going to run point at the Morris, so it will be a fifteen (15) to sixteen (16) month <br />interim period. We are thinking of the Morris, Palais and Century Center as one (1) unit even <br />though they are separated by a block. <br />The marketing folks are shared corporately amongst the organizations, the event planning team <br />that works on many of the major events in town, our volunteer coordinators and our development <br />arm works on grants and fundraising and hasn't historically existed before. We just won one of <br />our first ever grants in the Parks Department, the Regional Cities Award for $5 million that will <br />pour into the riverfront parks and trails. <br />Councilmember Scott asked if there would just be one box office, and one (1) or two (2) <br />specialists managing the bookings. <br />Mr. Perri stated that is correct. For example, Denise is in charge of booking the Morris right <br />now. She has only been in charge of booking one (1) theater, she has all of these relationships <br />with promoters and agents throughout the country, there's no reason why she can't she also book <br />the Bendix or Discovery Hall. <br />13 <br />