Brennan: When leadership fails, more money won’t fix San Jose parks

San Jose city leaders are discussing spending $2.5 million to place a measure on next year’s ballot to levy a sugar tax or a new property tax assessment for park maintenance. San Jose residents deserve assurance that the Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department (PRNS) can be an effective custodian of current resources before being given more. The real problems within PRNS are not about money — they are about an ineffective leadership culture.

Visit any park during the day and watch operations firsthand. You’ll see many hardworking employees doing their best to care for San Jose parks. However, to the careful observer, you will also see significant problems in plain sight.

Too often, employees sit in idling trucks on personal phone calls, or crews spend more time driving to and from corporate yards than they do in parks doing actual maintenance. In one example, an employee was seen asleep in his truck while his immediate supervisor sat beside him. The senior park manager’s office was in that same park, yet the behavior went unchecked — and longstanding basic maintenance needs in this park continued to go unaddressed.

This is one example of many — reflecting systemic failures of supervision and accountability within PRNS. A simple observational analysis suggests there is a 40% productivity deficiency in PRNS park maintenance operations.

Many skilled and dedicated employees in PRNS care deeply about San Jose’s parks, and they should be supported. But they are held back by a leadership culture that tolerates underperformance, promotes based on factors other than merit, demonstrates poor change-management skills, lacks operational expertise and prioritizes appearances over outcomes. PRNS staff have been observed staging “dog-and-pony shows” for VIPs — temporary cleanups or work activities meant to create the illusion of consistent maintenance. These practices waste resources and distort public perception of how effectively the department operates.

A vivid example of PRNS’s shortcomings is the fate of the children’s water features in all of San Jose’s parks. These play areas — built at great expense — were once beloved community assets. They have been turned off and abandoned, ostensibly due to drought restrictions. When asked why the fountains were shut off, PRNS offered vague and incorrect explanations — claims that the San Jose City Council instructed it (which it did not), that the features “use too much water” or “cost too much to operate” — but it was unable to provide any supporting data. This is a telling symbol of the department’s leadership malaise — a lack of vision, initiative, accountability and follow-through.

Other leadership issues persist. The “hub-and-spoke” service model has been poorly implemented, creating inefficiencies as multiple crews visit the same parks for different tasks. Park rangers — whose duty is to protect and monitor city parks — remain largely confined to Happy Hollow and Alum Rock Park, leaving 97% of our parks unmonitored and the rules unenforced which creates avoidable problems and costs.

Millions of dollars continue to be wasted subsidizing Family Camp, a decades-old program that is mismanaged and has never been required to produce a break-even plan. The council-appointed Parks and Recreation Commission, established to advise the council, has faced obstruction from senior staff who restrict access to information when it raises uncomfortable questions. In one case, PRNS leadership even encouraged a commissioner to step down for “asking too many questions.”

These are not financial problems — they are leadership problems. Before PRNS receives any additional funding the city must rebuild the PRNS leadership foundation: train and empower the good employees, restore accountability, allocate resources more effectively and bring operational-management expertise into the organization.

Above all, PRNS must rebuild trust with the public. Until that happens, giving the department more money won’t fix the problem — it will only fund more of the same dysfunction.

 Ken Brennan is a member of the San Jose Parks and Recreation Commission representing District 10. He has served in this role for two years.