Foothills Sentry - September 2022

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Park owner’s manual Greetings to all of you candi- dates for the Silverado-Modjes- ka Recreation and Park District (SMRPD) Board of Directors: Ted Wright, Laurie Martz, John Nelson, Jessie Bullis, Andrew Ward and Brittney Kuhn! As prospective members of the exclusive club devoted to running what passes for government in the canyons, you might be won- dering, “What if I win? What do I do then?” Don’t worry. As a public ser- vice, Canyon Beat has condensed the essentials of what every park director needs to know into a few simple rules below. If you are elected, you will also be issued a larger and more offi - cial-looking Handbook, some- times referred to as the “Big Ol’ Book of Resolutions And Poli- cies” (BOBRAP). But that docu- ment is not posted on the SMRPD website, since it is so big that it would break the Internet. Also, if ordinary citizens could read it, they might discover that you di- rectors are not doing something correctly, and would not like you. With that out of the way, here- with the rules: RULE #1: The main job of a park director is to avoid being sued. This could happen, for in- stance, if someone were to step into a gopher hole at one of your parks. If that leads to medical bills (or even if it doesn’t), the stepper might say, “You directors should have put up a big ‘Danger! Gophers!’ sign. I am going to sue you for millions of dollars.” Although this has not occurred locally in recent memory, there is always the nagging suspicion that it might. Just like the theoreti- cal possibility of being struck by lightning while you are wrestling a mountain lion in quicksand. The usual talisman for warding off problems like this is insur- ance. Which leads us to … RULE #2: Insurance guide- lines must be followed. Or not. SMRPD’s insurance covers the cost of mistakes that you might make as a director, such as fail- ing to put up “Danger! Gophers!” signs. But it does not necessarily cover the cost of mistakes made by park users. Instead, SMRPD’s insurer provides “guidelines” for directors to use when deciding whether to cover user mistakes under the district’s insurance. The beauty of guidelines is that they can be followed selectively. So if one of your relatives hurts himself on a gopher hole, that would naturally be covered by the district’s insurance. But if a group of strangers wanted to rid the park of gophers, they would obviously need to purchase liability insur- ance, since you don’t know what Those People are like, especially the one with a tattoo. RULE #3: Park users cause problems. If people would just keep out of the buildings and off the grounds, your park facilities would remain spotless and attractive. But ap- parently there’s a requirement somewhere mandating that public parks be open to the public occa- sionally. This is an ongoing prob- lem with no obvious solution. RULE #4: Providing too much information is dangerous. This was touched on earlier re- garding the BOBRAP, but since nobody reads that anyway, it’s not really a problem. What re- ally matters is the wording that you include on application forms, agreements, waivers, and other documents that you create in or- der to limit park use as much as possible. For example, on forms that mention insurance, call the guide- lines “requirements.” And do not mention your ability to waive “requirements” on a case-by-case basis. That just causes problems, especially if word gets out that somebody had to buy insurance to do the same thing that your brother-in-law got to do for free. Information control is also im- portant when dealing with the press. Do not trust newspapers. If something like this cheat sheet were to be published in a news- paper, it might embarrass you and make people not like you. Dirty deeds In July, a giant tractor removed Silverado’s iconic dirt mound across from the community cen- ter. The very hungry Caterpillar ate a phacelia, a boulder, a fence post, chain link, some concrete, bricks, a swing set, and an old car with wooden wheels. But it was still hungry. So it ate all the dirt, too. Actually, the Caterpillar was really a Doosan, so it never turned into a butterfly like the caterpil - lar in Eric Carle’s classic picture book. A giant moth could have been useful, though: Those are known to be beneficial by fight - ing off giant three-headed space aliens, at least in Japanese mon- ster movies. The current worry, though, is dirt still clogging local creeks after last winter’s floods. The county has hired contractors to haul it away, but some residents worry that giant dump trucks might harm the narrow private roads, despite contractors being required to repair anything that they damage. Should everyone haul out a bucket of dirt on the way to work each morning instead? Or do we need giant gophers? A Doosan tackles the dirt mound across from the community center.