New NORDC CEO lays out plans for New Orleans recreation

18th February 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer

In September 2009, when Larry Barabino Jr. resigned as the city of New Orleans’ recreation director for another job at the Children’s Defense Fund, he reflected on how much the city’s parks and recreation services had recovered over the three years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans Recreation Department’s (NORD) facilities and programming.

“It was my goal to re-establish this department as a better, stronger recreational outlet, and to position NORD as one of the best recreational outlets in the nation,” he told the media at the time. “I believe that in this (fifth) year of recovery and rebuilding, NORD is well on its way to fulfilling that goal.”

A decade since he departed the city administration, Barabino has returned to the NORD Commission as its new chief executive officer. Selected in December by the NORDC board over two other finalists drawn from a pool of nearly 100 applicants, Barabino now begins his second tenure serving the city’s residents.

In a recent interview with The Louisiana Weekly, Barabino, a New Orleans native, said his top goal is to involve the community overall, and especially the residents who use and run recreational programming, in the decisions that will carry NORDC into the future.

“Coming in, I want to reinvigorate volunteers and get them invested in the programming we offer,” he said. “We want to have quality volunteers and staff so we can offer first class recreational opportunities for the community.”

A key facet of that objective is strengthening and enhancing the relationships with schools, businesses, community groups and other city agencies that were launched and nurtured during the administrations of former Mayor Mitch Landrieu and current Mayor LaToya Cantrell.

“I want to continue the great partnerships we have with our schools and with other community organizations,” he said. “We know we we’re not the be-all, end-all [for community recreation], so we want to make sure that if there’s anything we fall short of, we have partnerships that can help us provide services.”

Brian P. Egana, chairman of the NORDC Commission, said last week that Barabino has already started shaping NORD for the future after just a few months on the job. Egana said the department is fully staffed, and Barabino has already launched campaigns to increase coaching staffs and volunteer involvement in NORD programming.

“We need to re-establish the pipeline of youth volunteers and get them to step up to the plate,” he said.

Egana added that re-establishing many of the department’s private-public partnerships and looking to volunteer booster clubs to help rehab and update facilities are on Barabino’s agenda, and Egana said the commission is prepared to both support Barabino in his efforts and to keep the new CEO’s feet to the fire when it comes to carrying on those efforts.

“I, as chairman, will hold [Barabino] accountable for the goals he has laid out,” Egana said.

On the topic of maintenance, Egana said the commission needs to take a hard look at the rental fees charged for residents using NORDC facilities and make a change if necessary.

“We just can’t continue to maintain facilities the way we need to with the current fees,” he said.

The hiring of Barabino as NORDC CEO was welcomed by the city’s elected officials, who expressed confidence in his abilities to lead one of the city’s most visible and community-engaged administrative agencies.

“As Mayor of this City, I’m looking for exactly what our people have asked for [in a NORDC head]: a leader who can step up to provide services to not only our children but to all of the customers who use NORDC …” Cantrell said in a statement in December announcing the selection of Barabino.

“And I am looking for us to embrace all that’s good, make it great, and make improvements where we know they can be made,” added Cantrell, also a member of the NORDC board. “I’m confident with the selection process. I stand by it, I stand by the vote this commission has made, and I stand by Mr. Barabino.”

City Councilwoman Cyndi Nguyen, who serves on the NORDC board of directors as the Council’s representative, told The Louisiana Weekly that she also believes Barabino is the right person for such a pivotal position.

“I am proud to be part of the leadership to hire Mr. Barabino as the CEO for NORD,” Nguyen said. “Mr. Barabino comes to NORD with knowledge, understanding and passion in serving our city. His past involvement and professional experiences will help the NORD Commission to take fast action to ensure our parks and recreation centers are designed for the people of the city.

“I look forward working with Mr. Barabino to create accountable and sustainable programs for the people of the city of New Orleans,” she added.

City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, a member of the council’s Community Development Committee, which oversees parks and recreation services, told The Louisiana Weekly that, as NORDC stands at a crucial crossroads of development and functioning, she supports Barabino as well.

“The task of reorganizing and refocusing NORD is not going to be easy,” Gisleson Palmer said, “but Mayor Cantrell has done an admirable job in finding people for her administration willing to do the hard work. Larry’s commitment to the children of New Orleans is unquestioned, and I look forward to working with him in any way I can to ensure that we as a city make the proper investments in the well-being of our youth.”

Barabino takes over an agency with a $14.6-million annual operating budget (plus $1 million in donations, much of it through the NORD Foundation), and 131 full-time employees and 117 part-time staffers.

Under Landrieu and previous City Councils, New Orleans’ parks and recreation operations were completely reorganized and restructured, including the creation of the NORD Commission and the NORD Foundation.

One of the major goals of the changes – which were made to jump-start lagging NORD improvements and programs as the years passed since Katrina – stressed involvement of businesses and other community entities to increase NORDC’s funding and fuel an aggressive new rehabilitation, development and construction plan.

The restructuring took place after Barabino’s departure from his original stint as NORD CEO, a tenure that received mounting criticism from the public and scrutiny from the media about the failure to spend funds provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other sources following Hurricane Katrina. Much of the criticism focused on the perceived slow restoration and rehabbing of the city’s pools and playgrounds.

However, Barabino noted that the task he and other city officials faced following the devastation wrought by the hurricane included recovery on a massive scale. Barabino received praise in the immediate wake of Katrina for steadying and assessing NORD’s facilities and for planting the seeds of growth for returning recreational services and programming.

“It’s two different times for me,” Barabino said of his two stints as CEO.

“This department is different from the one I directed in 2006 immediately [after] Katrina,” he added. “Ninety percent of our recreation facilities were de-stroyed. We had to stabilize things and work with FEMA to find funding and assess the situation.”

Barabino said he hopes to build on all of the progress made since he departed the job in 2009, progress keyed by the vibrant efforts of everyone involved.

“As an agency we need to take advantage of all the hard work people have put into this,” he said.

This article originally published in the February 18, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.