A member of San Jose’s Parks and Recreation Commission has issued a public broadside against the department he helps to oversee.
In a public letter sent to city leaders Nov. 7, Commissioner Ken Brennan warned that mismanagement within the Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department has hamstrung the agency’s ability to maintain the more than 200 parks that it is responsible for throughout the city.
“My concern is they don’t really understand how inefficient and unproductive (the parks department) is and how poorly the decisions within (the agency) are being made,” Brennan, who represents District 10 on the 11-member commission, told San José Spotlight.
The warning comes as city leaders consider a parcel tax ballot measure next year to help fill a longstanding funding gap that has led to an estimated $550 million backlog of deferred park maintenance. Brennan argues that before San Jose considers providing the parks department with additional funds, the City Council must reassert control over an agency he alleges has been allowed to skirt oversight and set its own agenda for years.
“Our Parks Commission is not operating as it is supposed to,” Brennan wrote to councilmembers and other city leaders. “It has effectively been dormant for years, and bureaucratically skilled (parks department) staff have filled this void by taking effective control of the development of the annual (commission) work-plan.”
Brennan is referring to a work plan that will set the commission’s oversight agenda for the coming year, including what topics will come under review during the body’s bi-monthly meetings. He alleges parks employees broke with city protocol to cut commissioners out of the process of drawing up the document.
City officials are pushing back against Brennan’s claims.
Parks spokesperson Amanda Rodriguez said the department has followed all city policies and procedures in developing the work plan.
“The work plan was reviewed and discussed with the commission on three separate occasions at the request of Commissioner Brennan,” Rodriguez told San José Spotlight.
Rodriguez said commissioners already approved the plan, with only Brennan voting against it.
Brennan has laid out his concerns in a memo he plans to present during the Neighborhoods Services & Education Committee’s Dec. 10 meeting, where the draft work plan will be reviewed.
Brennan’s memo includes a list of “critical issues” facing the parks department that he said have been excluded from the work plan, despite commissioners having raised them repeatedly.
Among the issues raised in the memo, he alleges department heads have allowed park rangers to spend too much time in their offices instead of patrolling parks, and claims commissioners have been denied access to department data. He also said poor oversight of maintenance teams has led to “chronic productivity issues.”
The committee’s five members — Councilmembers Peter Ortiz, Bien Doan, David Cohen, Domingo Candelas and Pamela Campos — either declined to comment or did not respond.
Rodriguez did not address any of Brennan’s claims about operational shortcomings directly.
“Commissioners are always encouraged to raise questions or offer thoughtful scrutiny of our operations during (commission) meetings or directly with department leadership,” she said.
While the parks department managed to avoid cuts during the June budget cycle, officials have maintained their agency has faced funding and staffing shortfalls for decades. Since 2003, the department’s full-time workforce has dropped from nearly 230 employees to just over 180, even as the city’s parkland has increased by 22%, according to department figures.
San Jose residents have voiced alarm about blight, graffiti and crime problems in the city’s parks. In response, some councilmembers have thrown their support behind a proposed 2026 ballot measure that would levy a new parcel tax on single-family homes and other properties to maintain park facilities.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez said Wednesday’s parks commission meeting will include a presentation of a plan to address the department’s deferred maintenance backlog.
San José Spotlight reached out to all the parks commissioners. Only District 2 Commissioner Andre Morrow agreed to comment. Morrow worked for the parks department as a supervisor for years until he retired about eight years ago.
“(Brennan) does have some legitimate concerns,” Morrow told San José Spotlight.
However, he stopped short of endorsing the call to send the proposed annual work plan back to the drawing board, as he believes cooperation between the commission and department is improving.
Morrow downplayed any internal problems within the parks department, arguing instead the primary challenge facing the agency is a lack of funding.
“I know that they’re doing the best that they can with the resources they have,” Morrow said. “I know that they’re understaffed. I know that firsthand because … we were understaffed when I was there. There’s not enough people to do the amount of work that is needed to get those parks to service level.”
Contact Keith Menconi at [email protected] or @KeithMenconi on X.