The Sandy Springs Diversity and Inclusion Task Force began sending surveys about parks and recreation to the city’s approximately 17,000 registered voters.
The 18 questions are being distributed over three weeks to enable them to make any tweaks necessary, Clarissa J. Sparks, the chair of the Recreation and Parks subcommittee, told the task force during its Aug. 10 meeting.
Sparks, the founder and brand strategist for Sparks + Company, a branding agency that empowers women, said the survey was created with two goals in mind. The first goal is to capture how Sandy Springs makes its parks and recreation activities inclusive of its diverse population and community. The second goal was to capture data to share with the City Council and the Recreation and Parks Department, she said.
The survey, which was prepared with assistance from Melanie Couchman of Sandy Springs Together, asks how community members use the public parks and do they feel welcome there? Other questions include: do residents know about events and activities at the parks, what priorities do they have for parks and what prevents them from using Recreation and Parks facilities and programs?
Demographic information will be requested to help the task force in its goals for diversity and inclusion.
“Once we collect and analyze the data, we will start conducting focus groups just so we can hear the voices of the people directly and see what recommendations need to be made,” Sparks said.
Task force member Jose Osorio, assistant principal at Lake Forest Elementary School, asked if the survey would be translated into other languages. Sparks said it will be in English and translated to Spanish.
Housing and Transportation Subcommittee Chair Olivia Rocamora told the rest of the task force that she wanted to put two items from the group’s housing report as priorities for this year. The first was to urge City Council to resume phase two of its housing study, which was put on hold around the time the pandemic began.
Rocamora, the Spanish Department chair and Spanish Immersion program coordinator at The Weber School, said she put the housing study as a high priority because members of the task force are not experts in housing. An outside consulting group was successful in its Housing Needs Assessment study and are experts in providing answers on what other cities are doing, she said.
“We know this is a national crisis, statewide, citywide in Sandy Springs, and so there’s no need to for us to try and figure out what to do as much as we need to push for professional research for what other cities that are similar to Sandy Springs are doing and then go from there,” she said.
The other priority would be to present to City Council Tony Ruth’s “Addressing Imbalance” cartoon series to City Council, which explains the difference between equity and equality.
Chairman Jim Bostic will discuss with Mayor Rusty Paul a request by Rocamora to invite the mayor and City Council members to meet with the task force to discuss goals and learn about common initiatives. Paul created the task force and set its goals and mission.
The Communications subcommittee was formed by Rabbi Joshua Heller, with Nicole Morris, a professor at Emory University School of Law, Jose Osorio and Rocamora joining him.
“The goal of this committee is to really explore how we make sure that all the residents of Sandy Springs are aware of what’s going on,” he said.
“We’ve seen there are some people who don’t have access to our weekly print newspapers. There are people where there is a language barrier. There are people who we just assume, well, I can look it up on my phone or if it doesn’t work on my phone, I’ve got a laptop. But that is not true,” Heller said.
One of the challenges is translating things properly, as translating complicated documents takes skilled effort, he said.
The task force’s next meeting will be at 6 p.m. on Sept. 14 at City Hall at 1 Galambos Way.
