Boy Scout’s Volunteer Project Gets Tangled in a Web of Red Tape

Even in a city like Sierra Madre, where volunteerism runs deep, a person with good intentions and big plans can be put through the bureaucratic wringer.

Just ask 13-year-old Scott Palmer, who only wanted to donate a 9-foot bulletin board for a city park so he could earn his Boy Scout Eagle rank.

It took six months to settle the matter with two meetings by a city commission, three meetings by the City Council--including a two-hour walk through the park to find the best site--and a demand that the board be reduced in size.

The decision-making has taken so long that Palmer won’t earn the rank by his birthday on Dec. 20 as he hoped.

To public officials, the delay was merely normal. But not to Palmer. “I was a little mad. I knew it would be a big project, but I didn’t know the city would be so difficult,” the eighth-grader said.

Scott could have done the project for any city. But he chose his hometown.

“I’ve played baseball and basketball here,” he said. “I’ve done all sorts of recreational activities here. It’s my favorite town.”

Council members Glenn Lambdin and Kris Miller Fisher, who voted against the proposal because of its location and size, defended the time it took to make a decision.

“There’s a public process,” regardless of what the project is, said Fisher. “There’s a number of people who get a say in this: Parks and Recreation Commission, City Council and residents.”

Still, Mayor Rob Stockly thought the “process took a little longer than it should have,” and didn’t require a third City Council meeting. He blamed the delay on the lack of information in Scott’s original plan and pointed out that the city gets so few such requests that it doesn’t have a typical procedure.

It started in May when Scott suggested the idea to Director of Public Works Bruce Inman after talking with Recreation Director Michelle Keith, who told him the city needed bulletin boards for its parks.

It wasn’t until he returned from summer vacation in August, Scott said, that Inman told him he needed to submit a formal proposal before it could be considered by the Parks and Recreation Commission.

The commission first discussed the sign at the end of August. The group thought the plan was too general and decided to look at it again at the next meeting a month later.

“There were questions,” said Keith, who oversees the commission for the city. “The plan lacked a lot of detail.”

The initial design didn’t include plastic doors to cover the board and the proposal didn’t say where the board would be placed in the park, she said.

After the commission was satisfied, the issue was put on the agenda for a City Council meeting in late September.

Council members said they wanted additional details about the design, of which Scott had only a sketch, and a drawing of exactly where the board would be placed.

At the second meeting in late October, the council approved it in a 3-2 vote, after Scott asked Robert L. Rinker, the former chief architect for Los Angeles County, to help him draw a professional design and choose an exact spot for the board.

Two days later, a special council meeting was called. Four of the five members who attended walked Memorial Park, the site the council originally approved, and then Sierra Vista Park, the site the council ultimately settled on.

“We had a tape measure,” Miller said. For almost two hours, “we were looking at the height of the areas of the parks to see where it would fit.”

Council members then scaled back the size of the board, which Lambdin, Fisher and Councilman Doug Hayes said was done for aesthetic reasons.

“I think it’s absolutely ludicrous,” Rinker said. “The City Council should have given blanket approval and let the Parks and Recreation Commission handle the details.”

Keith said that the commission is only an advisory board and that the final decision is up to the City Council.

“There will be more people that will donate things to the park,” Fisher said. “We have to be real careful with what little park land we have.”