Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Jessica Leys on the Department of Fun (Recreation and Parks)
This week on Pittman and Friends, County Executive Pittman talks with Jessica Leys, the Director of the Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks, also dubbed the "Department of Fun."
In this episode, learn about Jessica's remarkable 20-plus-year career journey with Anne Arundel County, starting her early days as a paralegal and budget analyst to becoming a key player in transforming community recreational spaces. Her innovative leadership, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been pivotal in redefining the role of parks in community engagement and well-being. You'll also gain insights into her passion for fostering real-life connections and promoting active lifestyles, tackling the digital age's challenges with creativity and determination, and much more.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, nne Arundel County Executive Stuart Pittman that's me and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of by and for the people. All right, we are here today with Jessica Lays, who happens to run the Department of Fun. It's really Recreation and Parks, but we call it the Budget of Fun because we have so much fun in our parks and the work that you do is so amazing with families and kids and everybody else, so welcome.
Jessica Leys:Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. I've always wanted to be on a talk show.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Oh yeah, All right. Well, you've got Pittman and Friends, the best talk show on the internet right? Tell all of the millions of listeners and me, us, we how you ended up in this job. You can start wherever you want. You can start as a child if you'd like. Oh fantastic.
Jessica Leys:How much time do we?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:have today, not that much Well.
Jessica Leys:I am homegrown and a public servant at heart. Born and raised here in Anne Arundel County. A public school product - went to South River down in South County. With the exception of four years of college up in Pennsylvania where I played college ball, I've lived every experience here in Anne Arundel County. What kind of ball? What kind of college ball? Lacrosse.
Jessica Leys:I was a big lacrosse player both in high school and in college. In 1999, I joined the County in the Office of Finance as a paralegal. I had no idea back then what I wanted to be when I grew up and was just given a really great opportunity. I went back to grad school to get my master's in public administration from the University of Baltimore and slightly after that graduation, John Hammond came knocking on my door to ask me if I wanted to join the budget team.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:John Hammond, the legendary budget officer. How many years was he in that job? 25 or something.
Jessica Leys:Yes, so he was here a little over 20 years and I was 15 of those years on the budget team. So amazing time and through a lot of different experiences here at Anne Arundel County. After that, while I was in the budget office for a long time, decades, I learned a little bit about everything is the best way to describe your budget office job. Obviously, you work with the budget office every year to build your operating and capital budget. Our job is behind the scenes taking in all of the department's requests, building a responsible budget, presenting it to you, taking it to the legislative branch and making a lot of decisions in a very short period of time.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I should say that the budget analyst, which is what you were for most of that time, has a certain group of agencies that they work with throughout the year to help them figure out what they're going to ask for and how to sometimes how to be more efficient. What were some of the agencies you had?
Jessica Leys:So I started off with land use and I like those a lot. I wanted to stay away from human services because they just were so complicated and had so many different funds.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Did you ever have Rec and Parks?
Jessica Leys:I did my very last year as a budget analyst. I had Rec and Parks.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I remember that because I remember thinking is it fair for them to take their budget analyst into their department where they know that now they know how to get at the money?
Jessica Leys:But go ahead. I'll let you finish with the story. I think that's where the seed was first planted for my love for Rec and Parks. If you remember, in your first term we built the FY20 budget together. It was shortly thereafter. I was a little bit burnt out and kind of getting tired of the day-to-day analytical building macros and access databases and playing with pivot tables and I really wanted to just work with people, and you might remember that conversation in your office when I came across the hall. Yeah, well, and you were also, I know you were a coach as well, so you were always out there on the fields.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You knew exactly what life was like out there at the county parks, how all the leagues competed for field space, and, yeah, I do remember that. So, and I have to say that you were the acting budget officer my first year. John Hammond was still on the job but had announced that he was going to retire. He stuck around to maybe keep an eye on what we were doing that first year and that first budget, and he was actually very helpful. But you were the acting budget officer and I had heard that you didn't really want the job and that was why you were acting. We were kind of hoping that you would love it so much that first year that you would change your mind and become our budget officer.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:But nope, Rick Anthony, who was running Rec and Parks at the time, recruited you as his deputy director, knowing, I think, full well that he was going to be leaving and that you would then step up. But it was great working with Rick that first year I remember it was a little more than a year and learning from him, because he was also a legend in Anne Arundel County. So you ended up as well. You ended up as deputy director. And then what happened?
Jessica Leys:Yeah, so I went over there and was his deputy in 2019. And then we all got hit with the national pandemic. So I learned a whole lot in that year. Right Everything changed, the way that Recreation and Parks provided programs and child care. Everything turned upside down and you remember, week by week, we were rolling out what you could do and you couldn't do, what was open and what was closed.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And a huge increase in park users. Because I remember the very first one of these online town hall things we did what did we call them? It was I was doing them with Dr. Kalyanaraman, um, the Health Officer. But uh, the first one we did it was a call in and people were, they were, they were um emailing and they were calling in and one of the questions that we got during it was uh, could you, would you be willing to make the parks free? Cause I had. I think we had just said something about, about, we need everybody to go outside and enjoy nature so that they can stay sane. And by the end of that, I think somebody had contacted you and you said, yes, we can do that, and we were able to announce it soon after that that parks were free.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Absolutely, and we kept parks open throughout the whole pandemic and we're really just talking about the regional parks where there's an annual pass, so we waived that.
Jessica Leys:So, unfortunately, right after the pandemic, Mr. Anthony went out on unexpected leave and he never came back. So you appointed me the Director of Recreation and Parks, and it is the best department to be a leader in. Every day is a new adventure.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yes, yes, he went out for some medical reasons, but then he went and visited his parents in California where he knew he wanted to end up and guess what? He got the dream job out there doing Rec and Parks there. So well, I got to say we've been through a lot together and I want to talk about some of those things. Since you've been the director, it's been quite a ride.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You know it's a complicated job and I want to get into this question about how you manage to deal with 150 staff I think you have like 800 part-time during seasonal times but as well as how you deal with all the user groups, which is crazy. You've got leagues, you've got teams, and then you've got the park neighbors that you've got to deal with and I know there've been some stories to tell there and a capital improvements budget that is like three times what it was. It's close to $100 million now in 60 some projects that you're working on to improve our parks, which I think is fantastic. It's probably driving you crazy, but can you just let everybody know what the divisions of rec and parks are, because I don't think everybody knows how broad your scope is.
Jessica Leys:Absolutely so. We're a relatively small department if you think about the millions of residents we serve every single year. Just like our name says, we have a recreation side and we have a park side. On the rec side, you have like adaptive recreation. You have your athletic leagues, we have aquatic facilities, child care, golf courses, and sports all of the sports and recreation programs that we run.
Jessica Leys:On the park side you've got your trail system, your regional parks, your community parks and, of course, park maintenance, which is one of the busiest divisions of our department. So what people don't realize is exactly what do we do, right? Well, we have over 12,000 acres of land that we have to maintain and take care of. That's 160 community and regional parks. Our park system is intentionally in your community. We want you to be able to ride your bike there or to walk there or have a short drive in order to appreciate and use all of the park amenities.
Jessica Leys:Our largest park is our trail system. We have over 100 miles of paved trails throughout the county, which is a huge connector to getting you to places, but also within the parks, we have a lot of natural trails. We have a lot of paved trails just to stay in shape, walk or run and keep a healthy lifestyle. We have about 2,600 park amenities. Those are things like your playgrounds, your fields, your pavilions, your beaches, your dog parks, like all the things that we put inside of a park that people use on a day-to-day basis.
Jessica Leys:But where the real statistics get pretty impressive is 5 million people come out to use our park system every single year. We thought that was just something during the pandemic. 5 million visits, you mean 5 million visitors to our park system. So we thought during COVID that spike would go back to being the normal visitation. But what happened is people fell in love with our parks over the pandemic and they find time now to come out, even though they're back to school and back to work.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So we have 600,000 residents just under that. So each resident is getting out to those parks.
Jessica Leys:Multiple times a year, eight or nine times a year.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, on average.
Jessica Leys:That's awesome, it's great. And then on top of that we've got a lot of programs. So we have two aquatic centers, two ice rinks and two golf courses. We provide about 350,000 individuals with classes or recreational programs every single year. Some of that is our sports leagues, which many of our listeners have children or adults that play in the sports leagues, so we have hundreds of teams participate each season. And then, last but certainly not least, is our child care, and we provide child care in schools, mostly elementary schools, for before and after care, and that's a huge service that we give to the residents in a very affordable way.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And these are the reasons why I am so committed to Rec and Parks. I remember when I was a candidate for office, thinking I really want to be the county executive that gets people outdoors and connects with nature, and I want to be the county executive of health and I want to be the county executive of child care, and I couldn't figure out how to put that into campaign slogans, but it was that important that I just felt in my bones that this was what really mattered for quality of life and health and all these things, and y'all are the ones who make it all happen. So, thank you. Let me just whip through a few of the things we've done together and we'll do this sort of like, I'll say the words and then you tell the short version of the story and I may jump in, and then we'll jump to the next one, the next one, the next one. So here, the first one is actually a bunch of words. It is community engagement process for capital improvement projects, including project development process, stakeholder groups, and plan a park.
Jessica Leys:That is quite an accomplishment and a mouthful. So when I first joined the department, one of our weaknesses was that community engagement when it wrapped around a new development, whether that was an improvement of existing park or a new park, which is making sure that the community understood what we were doing and why we were doing it, but also getting feedback from the community on should we be doing it that way?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Or doing it at all. Right, or doing it at all.
Jessica Leys:You're absolutely right. So we came up with a really pretty picture which a lot of our viewers are familiar with, but if not, it's on our website and it outlines the entire process. We call it the rainbow picture because it takes you through different colors and when individuals call about a project, we'll be like, oh, you're on the blue. That means your public engagement opportunities are here, here, and here. So help explain the process, because once people understood the process, they realized how impactful their feedback was.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:This thing's online somewhere right.
Jessica Leys:Yes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:What's the website for Rec and Parks?
Jessica Leys:www. aacounty. org/ rec parks.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay. All right and they can find it. You can find things in there, Absolutely. It's an amazing website actually.
Jessica Leys:So stakeholders groups is another area of improvement that we've done in the last couple of years, and that's really starting a stakeholders group earlier in the process. What is a stakeholders group group earlier in the process? What is a stakeholders group? It's just a bunch of individuals that have interest in what we're doing, coming together at the table to have a conversation about it before we do it. And that's really important because prior we maybe rolled out a here's what we'd like to do, gave it to the stakeholders group for their feedback. Now we go to the stakeholders group before that drawing becomes a drawing to say this is the idea we have. We want a natural park. What does that mean? What natural elements should we put there? Or we are building an athletic complex. What does that mean? What elements should we put at that complex? So in 2024, we had 21 public engagement opportunities, which is triple what we had five years prior to that. So we have been engaging the public a lot more through stakeholders groups and public meetings.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I will just note that that's not always easy, because stakeholders don't all agree with one another. They often disagree.
Jessica Leys:They do, they do. We've been working hard to get collaboration, and what collaboration means to our department is that we get the most amenity that serves the most people most of the time. So not everybody gets what they want, but we try our best to collaborate.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And then what's Plan-A-Park?
Jessica Leys:Plan-A-Park was a campaign that we did last year and an amazing response. We got over 5,000 responses. So what we did was we matched up some of our underutilized, unutilized parks with the amenities from our LPPRP, which is our five-year plan that we're going to talk about in a couple of minutes - Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I got it. Yay, I got it. It's taken me six years to learn that that. It was an A+ If this was a report card you just passed.
Jessica Leys:So the plan you probably kind of matched up those needs with the parks that we have available to say what do you want us to do there. And the fact that we had 5,000 responses was a huge testament to how important it is to do these types of surveys before we start the planning process so that we understand what the community and the residents of the county want.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and it's interesting that there is land that has not been turned into any kind of a park but is managed by Rec and Parks. Sometimes it's just protected as nature, sometimes it's purchased because there was an opportunity to purchase it. Keep it from being developed, often, and then later, maybe 10 years down the road, uh, the money is there and the plan is there to actually do something. So Beverly Triton Beach Park, Nature Park now, was an example where it wasn't really used. The beach wasn't really used by the public, and there's some others like that as well. And then it becomes controversial when you want to actually make improvements and bring more of the public to the site. Okay, now we're on the Mayo Peninsula.
Jessica Leys:That was only the first one. Oh goodness.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Your Pass Now. What's that?
Jessica Leys:Oh, so Your Pass Now is another great accomplishment that we've worked on together. So the situation there was on the Mayo Peninsula, where we have amazing park amenities but maybe weren't managed always the way that our neighbors wanted them managed. We had invested money into Beverly Triton, like you just mentioned, and the community really was frustrated with the county to a point where they just really didn't want anybody coming into the park anymore.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Not because they didn't want outsiders in that peninsula. One lane in, one lane out.
Jessica Leys:Yeah, so long. Just envision long lines of cars waiting to get into the park, only to be turned around because we're already at capacity, doing three-point turns, maybe in your front yard, speeding out of the neighborhood because they were upset at parks.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I actually remember going out there on a really hot summer day and there was that dirt parking lot out there by Beverly Triton across the road as the cars go speeding by and it was full and they were having to turn people away and you had to have police officers out there helping the park rangers because people weren't happy and it was a mess.
Jessica Leys:It was. So what we did was we met with the local HOAs and we started having a conversation about solutions, and what I found is that the community didn't want they did not want us there. In fact, they love their park system, they're our friends of park. They wanted us to manage it better. So we came up with a solution of Your Pass Now, which was used by National Park to reserve your spot to come. So we say we have 150 parking spots. Maybe we open up 300.
Jessica Leys:Your Pass Now passes for Saturday and now you can plan ahead. You can get your pass. There's no long lines, everybody that has a pass can get in. And we actually are serving more people using your pass now than we were before, when you just had the long lines of people trying to get into the park. And we use your pass now not only on the Mayo Peninsula anymore, but we use it in all of our parks, which makes it a lot better user experience for individuals, especially during our busy seasons like summertime at Beach Parks.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Right, and once people get used to it they look and see which parks have capacity and then they go to those and they don't drive all around the county.
Jessica Leys:All right, CAPRA accreditation. Okay so this is our accreditation, through the Maryland or through the National Recreation and Parks Association. And it's really important in rec and park worlds to be accredited, because there are standards that you have to meet and if you meet those standards then you get your accreditation. And when I first joined the department, they were working on that first accreditation and I had no idea the amount of work that went into getting accredited. As we're going through a reaccreditation process right now, it's not about the piece of paper, it's not about saying I'm accredited, it's about the process. And it's so valuable because it makes sure that we have the right policies and procedures in place so that when we're serving the public, we're serving them consistently, that we're serving them transparently and that we're serving them equally. And so being accredited is a huge gold star. Again, not for the document on the wall, but because we go through the process and do a self-assessment to make ourselves better every year.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I remember how excited everybody was when you got that and I didn't quite understand it until I looked at it and it's an important process. Okay, Halloween store.
Jessica Leys:Oh, one of my favorites. So, as many of you know, the County has recently purchased the old Giant/ Halloween store in Edgewater, off of Route 2. And this is a huge success story for many reasons.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:When I say Halloween store, it really didn't use most of the space, it was just that it was an abandoned Giant for many years and they would rent it out to folks during Halloween to sell Halloween stuff, and otherwise it was an abandoned big box.
Jessica Leys:It was an abandoned big box, and one of the things that you pushed our department to do was rethink about the way that we provide new amenities to the public. It doesn't always have to be a brand new piece of property that we're tearing down trees in order to build a building on. So we went after big box stores and we said this is a great location, an area of need, where we can revitalize an existing dwelling. It's a better bang for your buck and we get to give back. It's a more sustainable model to creating a recreational center in South County. The other part of the success story is the amazing public outreach that has happened on the Edgewater Rec Center. We hosted a community day just this recent summer and we had over 500 people show up and come to just give their feedback about what they would like to see there. What kind of programming would they like, including me.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Absolutely. I was voting for my kids for indoor soccer, and now my mother has got some requests too. I don't live far from there, but I won't bore you with my mother's request for the indoor recreation center. It's going to be great, though, and it really is a first to be able to take a property like that. That was really an eyesore it had become, and it's already been cleaned up, but it'll be a while. I think you have to raise the roof, right? You have to actually replace the roof.
Jessica Leys:Right, so we're going to raise portions of the roof so that we can maybe put some taller indoor court type games inside. We got over a thousand responses to our online survey and had lots of great ideas. So we will be going through those responses and working on budget numbers and try to cram as much fun as we can not only into the 50,000 square foot building but into that gigantic parking lot that we all drive by all the time.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, here's a cool one. Emory Waters Cabins and I will just say people know where Jug Bay is, on the Patuxent River in the southern part of the county. It's a really cool place to go, but now there's a property just south of that that is also on the Patuxent River and that's where these cabins are going to be. Tell us what that's about.
Jessica Leys:That's awesome. It is going to be Anne Arundel County's first cabin, so a lot of people like to stay overnight on park properties and Anne Arundel County has never had that amenity before. So we have partnered with some of our educational partners to provide cabins that people can come and rent. Maybe your boy scout group wants to come and earn a patch. Maybe an environmental study group wants to come and stay in the cabins and study the waters. Maybe mom and pop just want to get out there for a weekend and have some time at a park. So this is an upcoming project that we're hoping will be done in the next year and will bring a great amenity online for the residents of the county.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Awesome, okay, Nature Escape and WOW.
Jessica Leys:These are brand new programs that I would love to talk about. So one of the things we've been doing is diversifying our park programming. You always hear about recreation programming, dance classes, and arts classes, and athletics but on the park side it was really important to roll out some programming. So, after COVID and so many people coming to our park, we established Nature Escape, which are programs that are the same in all of our different parks, that are led by rangers that really connect you with nature, get you off your electronic devices and outside to enjoy nature. And then WOW is Women on the Water. It empowers women, who maybe aren't super comfortable with going out on the water by themselves, to learn how to kayak or paddleboard on their waterways so that they can feel comfortable, they can learn the skills and then maybe bring it back and do it on their own.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I know you wanted me to ask you about River Days because I've been talking about it for years. I think everybody almost now knows what it is. We had five of them this year on different rivers, mostly in county parks. How do you feel about it now?
Jessica Leys:I know in the beginning I was not a huge fan. I was pushed back with the amount of people that would come to the parks and all the work. But they were hugely successful and we got nothing but positive feedback on the River Days, especially the two that you hosted, the one at Quiet Waters and the one at Fort Smallwood. I have a personal story with an individual that was at Quiet Waters. A little girl that was getting on the boat for the first time, kind of apprehensive, didn't want to get on the boat. Mom pushed her on the boat and then a couple hours later I saw them walking back to their community. They were from the Tyler Heights community and they were walking out of Quiet Waters and I asked her about her experience and she was just beaming. She couldn't wait to go back to school and tell her school teacher that what she did this summer was go on a boat for the first time. So you won me over. I'm a fan of River Days now.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, no, we are getting kids onto the water and families onto the water who might never have been on the water. So we just had a meeting about River Days, by the way, where we were all the things that were challenges and all the things we want to improve and we're looking forward to next summer. So, okay, I want to kind of wrap it up here with that we could. There's a million things we can talk about that you do, and I will just say that I've been to some of your staff meetings, and not full staff meetings, but with the division heads, and I guess some others, and even those seem fun, and I guess some others, and even those seem fun, efficient.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You know the people are. You know they're playing games, but they're also being very, very professional about what they're doing. I was really impressed by that. I've been really impressed by the way that you've managed some of the conflict among user groups for fields and all of that, and I've also been impressed with the way you've managed community groups that sometimes are supportive and then sometimes not with what you're doing. So what have you learned? And would you do it all over again, given the choice, or would you rather be at the budget office?
Jessica Leys:Well, I've learned a lot since I've been the director. I think the biggest lesson in all of those examples is to listen first, speak second, both internally and externally. Most people just want to be heard. They want to be heard. Their voice is important to our department and so putting things into place to make people feel heard has been one of my biggest lessons learned.
Jessica Leys:I'm a talker and I love to get into the room with decades of knowledge and share all that knowledge, but sometimes just sitting back and listening and letting staff, letting residents of the county just tell me what it is they'd like to see or how they'd like to see us do it.
Jessica Leys:The other big thing is I lead with enthusiasm, so sometimes we have to have difficult conversations, no different than we did in the budget when we had to say no to things. But if you say no with a smile on your face, if you explain why you can't do it with enthusiasm and share the information, people usually respect you and respect that opinion. So I've learned to just kind of be patient and have those crucial conversations and listen. Provide opportunities for people to talk and give feedback and let their feedback lead my decisions, and I love it and I think my answer would be that I would stay. I really do love recreation and parks. I love the people and being homegrown and, like you said, a local athlete, coach, mom, I get it. I get what people need, I get the county and the way that we operate. So those two worlds just kind of come together really easily and makes work not feel like work.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It makes it just feel like living the best life I can. Well, I just want you to go back and tell all of your staff, all of your rangers, all of your maintenance people, all the great people that do the work at Rec and Parks.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Thank you, because you said something about people and they're being connected to their devices earlier, and, as I think about the future and the fact that we are all addicted to these devices now, I worry, and I think a lot of us worry, about whether or not we're going to maintain the quality of life that nature gives us, that interacting with one another gives us, and I worry about our health too as we sit there on the couch with these things. So you all are delivering in a way that is essential. I think it's become something essential for our communities and our county and I am really thrilled that now, six years in, I feel like we really have become the administration. I mean, maybe I got lucky with some federal money and a few things to help sweeten the pot to do even more, but your staff and you have done an incredible job of making nature accessible, getting people out there in it, getting people active, and providing the opportunity. So thank you, thank you.
Jessica Leys:Thank you, and we're really excited to continue to just find ways that we can provide more opportunities to make life better and keep keep doing great things and making life better.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's your slogan, right?
Jessica Leys:Yeah, we make life better. We make life better all right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, thank you for joining us. Come on back next week, everybody, for another fun conversation with another good person who's making Anne Arundel County The Best Place - For All."
Jessica Leys:Yay!
