TOWN OF EAST HAMPTON 159 Pantigo Road East Hampton, New York 11937 Office: (631) 324-2417 Fax: (631) 324-3085

JOHN ROONEY SUPERINTENDENT OF RECREATION

Recreation Department Report by John Rooney, East Hampton Town Superintendent of Recreation, at Nov. 13, 2018 Town Board Session

I would like to thank the town board for giving the Recreation Department the opportunity to showcase itself. I will give a brief overview of what our department does, what’s been happening recently, what’s coming up in the future, and some challenges that we face.

Overview The Recreation Department offers a wide variety of programs, activities, and events no matter what the age may be. We are dedicated to creating recreational opportunities for the entire East Hampton Town community, and its guests. Basically, it is our job to make sure that everyone from East Hampton to Montauk safely has fun! Our department is responsible for administering and running recreation programs and events, implementing lifeguards at the 8 designated, town swim beaches, overseeing and staffing the Montauk Skate Park, the Amagansett Youth Park, the Montauk Playhouse, several entrance booths at the town beaches, and our administrative office located in the EH Town Hall Complex. We are also responsible for booking athletic fields, the Maidstone Pavilion in Springs, various parkland locations, and Fort Pond House located in Carol Morrison Park here in Montauk. The Recreation Department is unique because our staffing expands and contracts depending upon what time of year it is. For example, from December until July, our department grows from about 25+ employees to about 150+ employees, and then in August we begin to cycle back down until December, where we then start the whole process all over again. During the year, the Recreation Department not only runs programming at several EH Town facilities, beaches, and park locations, but we also utilize non-town locations such as: Havens Beach in Sag Harbor, the Montauk School, the Amagansett School, Springs School, EH Middle School, EH High School, and John Marshall Elementary. The Recreation Department also utilizes non-town entities in order to offer additional programming options on our behalf during the year, such as: Montauk Downs golf course and Sportime at Amagansett. Our department is always looking for ways to expand the recreation programs available for the town. Examples of some recent additions would be the new Field Hockey program during the indoor months in both EH and Montauk, and the exploding Nipper Guards program during the summer, also both in EH and Montauk. The Recreation Department always encourages anyone who has expertise in a recreational activity (which they would like to run for the town) to contact our office so that we could possibly add such to our menu.

Town Website Information regarding any of the town’s recreation programs, facilities, parks and beaches can be found on the town website, including downloadable permits for the reservable spaces, and also applications for the recreation programs. We are also constantly working to build the database so that more and more people are part of the town’s alert system with respect to what’s happening in our department. If you are interested, please go to the “notify me” option on the town’s website. I would also like to encourage everyone to let us know if there is anything that we could add to the town website which would make it easier for the public to gain information regarding recreation in the Town of East Hampton. Our goal is to continuously find ways to make the website as user friendly as possible. Speaking of the town website, for the first time there is a link which now allows you to sign up online for the upcoming Thanksgiving morning “Run for Fun” here in Montauk. I encourage everyone to skip the lines and sign up online. Also, for those who do not know, the net proceeds from this race benefit the local food pantries and “Meals on Wheels.” Because of this, we also added the ability to now donate additional funding to the local food pantries on that same online, race registration link. So, whether or not you are participating in the Run for Fun, there is now a way that anyone can donate monies online, up until Thanksgiving.

Beaches 2018 was the first full summer season where a link on the town website was made available to find out, in real time, the current beach conditions (including water and air temperature, high and low tide times, etc.), and to also find out what the current lifeguard stand flag color was (indicating the surf condition), allowing everyone to find out how the water is without leaving home. Our office frequently gets calls during the summer asking what the flag color is, therefore we have now made this information available online. Over the past two seasons, the Recreation Department managed to not only fill previous lifeguard vacancies, but we were also able to expand our lifeguarding capabilities by getting in place the incremental salary increases needed to allow us to be able to recruit the required staff. This also allowed us to successfully broaden our coverage of the sand between Kirk Park and South Edison beaches in Montauk, making that entire hotel corridor much safer. In 2018, lifeguard recertifications grew by 66%, certifications grew by 42%, the junior lifeguard program grew by just over 1%, and the Nipper Guards grew by 21%. These percentages are in comparison to 2017. At Atlantic Avenue in 2018, daily beach parking passes saw an increase of almost 13% over 2017. Despite this specific increase, the lifeguards reported an estimated, overall decrease in attendance on all the beaches by almost 14%, even though this reduction was not felt in Montauk. The Montauk beaches actually saw an increase in usage of about 10.5% this year. Weather is most likely to be the biggest contributing factor to beach visitation, but it is hard to tell at this point.

Recreation Programs and Park Reservations In 2018, summer recreation program revenue grew by just over 3%, athletic field reservation revenue increased by just over 6%, reservation revenue for Fort Pond House grew by 60%, and park reservations decreased by 27%.

Working with Buildings and Grounds The Recreation Department works very closely with the Buildings and Grounds Department, which is under Tony Littman. In working together, several construction projects were completed this year at the Montauk Playhouse: Windscreens were added to the front entrance doors to make it safer during the days that there are high wind gusts (helping to keep the doors from flying open), the driveway on the north side of the building was fully paved, eliminating the messy stones, and a new lighting system was installed in the gymnasium, which has made it brighter, more aesthetically pleasing, and more cost efficient. Earlier this year, two of the town’s ballfields were renovated… one at Maidstone Park in Springs, and the other at Terry King in Amagansett. These renovations included rebuilding the infields, and also installing new fences and backstops at both locations. At the Amagansett Youth Park, all new windows were just installed in the recreation building, and a new door and shingles for the front entrance side of that building is being completed as well.

Administration A recent administrative improvement has been our ability to now take either credit or debit cards for payments regarding recreational services at our main office in East Hampton. This also allows us to take payments over the phone as well, which has been a convenient addition for those who wish to make payments but cannot get to our office or to the Montauk Playhouse.

Future Projects Some future projects on the horizon include a video surveillance system at the Montauk Playhouse, resurfacing the two tennis/pickle ball courts by Lyons soccer field, and the upgrading of the ballfield lights at Lyons Field here in Montauk.

Challenges 1) Stephen Hands Path - Due to the constant usage of the two soccer fields in Wainscott, we need to find a solution to either help the grass there heal, or to possibly look into an artificial turf option. The constant usage there makes it nearly impossible to bring the grass back to the way it needs to be. 2) Due to the anticipated construction to break ground for the completion of Phase II of the Montauk Playhouse (coming this spring), we still need to find both a temporary and a long-term solution (starting next fall) for housing the Lifeguard truck and a jet ski during the winter, so that Ocean Rescue can utilize them if needed for emergencies during the cold weather time of the year. 3) Staffing – As I mentioned earlier, our department is constantly expanding and contracting depending on the season. Since we will be soon entering into our expansion phase of the year (after the holidays), we will once again be looking for people to hire for the 2019 season. Our department is only as good as the people who work for us. If you or someone you know is looking for a job which is about making sure that the public has fun, please keep checking the town website regularly, or contact us at our main office in East Hampton or at the office in the Montauk Playhouse as the spring and summer approaches, for positions such as lifeguards, beach booth attendants, and recreation aides in our recreation programs and skate parks. Again, I thank the town board for this opportunity….