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Rollingwood Women’s Club donates $10,000 to park projects
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
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As they do each year, the Rollingwood Women’s Club has donated a hefty monetary gift to the community it serves. This time, it is $10,000 to be split evenly between a shade structure for the playscape and a to-be-determined project for the walking trail.
Anonymous comments on the Westlake Picayune Web site have made this donation out to be controversial, while the women who were present at the vote and willing to go on the record say it was anything but.
“We’ve been talking about voting on this issue at every single meeting,” said club president Laura Hirschfeld. “We always vote in November and give the gift in December. It’s been very clearly discussed and it really wasn’t that controversial in the spirit of we’re going to support both things.”
While she said a few people at the meeting were unsupportive of giving more money to the shade structure, to which the club had donated $10,000 last year, no one spoke out against it vehemently.
“There was never any dissent about the shade structure until the last two months,” she said. “When we gave it last year it was completely unanimous, everyone was thrilled to do it.”
Last year’s $10,000 donation was recently matched by a grant from the RGK Foundation, bringing the grand total of donated funds for the structure, estimated to cost between $20,000 and $40,000, to $25,000 between the RWC and the grant.
The club is a purely philanthropic organization. It has no overhead, aside from its annual fundraising events and exists solely to raise money for the community.
“The park commission really drives where we give the money,” Hirschfeld said.
Park Commission Chair Kelli Carlton said that the shade structure has been on the radar for well over a year and that they have clearly told the community many times over that they will do it at the peak of cost-effectiveness and aesthetic appeal.
“We are adding trees to the extent that we can,” she said. “We’ve spoken with the city’s arborist and he recommended a red oak and three crepe myrtles.”
Mira Vista has donated three crepe myrtles and the park commission must go before council before purchasing and planting a red oak. The trees would still only provide partial shade.
Carlton said that the commission is still investigating both manufactured shade structures and a specially designed shade structure created by a local artisan.
“Ultimately, we have to decide, would they be safe for our playscape and effective and again not detract from the kids ability to play?” she said. “Those three are the options that we have looked into and still are looking into.”
Comments on the message board claim that the club has depleted their treasury; however, according to Hirschfeld, they still have $3,500 in the bank, which is plenty for an organization with no overhead. The club’s two main fundraisers, it’s 5K and Fourth of July celebration, will happen in spring and early summer.
Club member Melissa Morrow made the initial motion to donate $5,000 to the walking trail and a second member moved to donate $5,000 to the shade structures. Both items were voted on and supported by a clear majority of club members at its last meeting.
“In my mind, we had really good healthy discussion about that,” Morrow said. “Yes, they gave the gift but the whole point of the organization is to raise money over the year and then give it to the community.”
The rumor of depleting the RWC treasury began with the RWC president making that announcement in the last city council meeting. Also, $15,000 has been donated by the RWC according to the December city council agenda.
Contrary to what is being stated by the RWC president and the reporter in this article, the RWC does indeed have overhead. Each meeting costs money, wine and food cost money. Advertising, invitations, and mailings cost money. This is overhead. Those expenses should be available for discussion since this issue is now being debated.
The shade structure was just recently approved as a project at last month’s RCDC meeting. The RWC’s “earmarked” funds were pushed through with the support of certain RWC members before the city approved the structure. Nothing has been finalized as the RCDC projects are currently in the 60 day review process which is the time period available for PUBLIC COMMENT. This is a form of public comment, is it not?
Are the shade structures and walking trail widely supported by the citizens of Rollingwood? Maybe the mayor could do some sort of a survey asking for a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Once the will of the majority of the community is established, funding should be sought….or not, if the interest in these items are not shared by the majority.
Uh HEY, have you forgotten that *I* am the one who said RWC needs to have a budget and that we should limit our overhead to our dues money so that fundraising money could be spent on our nonprofit mission? I tried for the 3 years I was treasurer to get us to have a budgeting process, to review the financials each meeting, to APPROVE a budget for each year. I talked about keeping the expenses low, not buying food for the parties, doing lower cost invitations and I was soundly criticized for THAT. No one wanted that and they were mad that I tried to make them do it! Come on, sign up to be the treasurer or president and maybe you will have better luck putting these processes in place. I will support you wholeheartedly.
Oh, and my comment about depleting the treasury was a JOKE. We did give the maximum I thought we should give and we discussed that at the meeting. We have a treasurer report at each RWC meeting, so anyone attending the meetings knew how much was in the acct, how much we decided to give, and how much would be left. No one who was at the meeting should have been under the impression that the bank account would really end up empty.
Sometimes you do things for different groups within a community- not always a majority. The people who want the shade structure- Moms who use the park with small children should not be discounted. People who want the walking trail should not be discounted.
Obviously you will find people who are for each project and against each project. Majority rule isn’t always the best deciding factor.
Both projects will service members of the community. One will service a broader spectrum but as Rollingwood changes- new families moving in the other will benefit just as many residents.
Just because you don’t want it- doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. Both projects add value to our community and supporters of each should be respected.
To ugh: A suggestion asking for a determination from the community as a whole is not an unreasonable one, and you are jumping to conclusions when you assume those who request more information don’t support the projects. As we can’t count on the Rollingwood Women’s Club to financially support the ongoing maintenance of these projects, those costs may fall on the shoulders of all Rollingwood taxpayers. Asking how many community members will be serviced by these individual proposed projects shouldn’t be met with such animosity. It would be nice if in the future, the members of our neighborhood who ask questions (about projects that impact our neighborhood and our wallets) will be respected to same the degree that those proposing the projects are asking for.
As I understand it, the RWC funds are donations from a private non profit neighborhood club open to all Rollingwood women who choose to join. The membership votes on what community projects they wish to support. If you belong and didn’t vote, you shouldn’t complain. If you don’t belong, you have no standing to judge what this organization chooses to fund. Either way, donations to any community project is a gift…let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth and offer thanks instead of criticism.
RCDC on the other hand is funded through a local sales tax. The community as a whole should have a say in how that money is spent. These aren’t special interest funds.
Let’s ask Elvis if DEMOCRACY means anything. So “majority rule isn’t the best deciding factor” commenter#5 (ugh)? Sometimes we can get into a lot of trouble with the “dear leader” arrogance of discounting and ignoring the will of the majority.
If you don’t like what the RWC supports, then don’t donate to it. It’s that simple. If you want some say in what it funds, then join the organization, go to the meetings, and speak up.
All I know is that I’m glad I don’t live in Rollingwood, and if I did, I sure wouldn’t volunteer my time to try to work with the community after this debacle. Your damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. I think that “Anonymous” needs to run for president of the RWC since she seems to know how everything should be run, and how all monies should be spent. Heck, I think she should be mayor. She seems to have a handle on how everything should be handled in the community of Rollingwood. I nominated her–any seconds? Oh, wait…..She’s anonymous! That’s right. It’s easy to sit back and take pot shots at people and organizations, and tell everyone how they should do things when you don’t want to take credit for your ideas, good or bad. That way if someone disagrees with you, or if your idea is voted down, there is no public accountability.
Interested observer: Of all the comments so far, I think the ones by “anonymous” are actually quite respectful and certainly don’t contain what I would call pot shots. Is “anonymous” a “she”? I thought otherwise. I also think you DO live in Rollingwood since you obviously have very strong feelings about this. But you don’t want anyone knowing who you are so you can take pot shots at “anonymous”. Quite funny!
I wonder why Interested Observer is picking on “Anonymous”? I don’t see anything wrong with the posts made by Anonymous. It seems odd. I wonder what the real issue is with this person who says he/she does not live in Rollingwood?
Wow, what is the deal with Interested Observer? Maybe I.O. has the postings confused. On the other hand, being mayor in Rollingwood looka like a job that Anonymous could do just fine so maybe I.O. is onto something. Maybe Anonymous should run for mayor!