Every park and recreational area should have a community council responsible for oversight of the maintenance and improvement of that area. Parks and Recreational staff should shift some of their job title responsibilities to helping recruit, train, and supervise these community councils.

I suggest that each Council District have an interactive website like MyPlanPhx where residents can suggest and discuss various ways to improve living conditions in their District.

Many of the neighborhood organizations and Block Watches in the Maryvale and West Phoenix area were started in the 1990's with the help of Neighborhood Services. Now their membership has been dwindling, and they struggle to make effective communication in the new population of Latino residents.

Our Heatherbrae Neighborhood is now 70 % Latino, and a half of them are monolingual Spanish speaking.

Neighborhood Services, Police, Firefighters, and Schools are struggling to find ways of reaching out to these residents and combating the deep seated mistrust of government agencies based on these residents' past experiences and actions of the state legislature and county sheriff.

Bilingual and cross-cultural education of government workers, as well as creative methods of recruiting these new residents to volunteer and participate must be made a priority of these city agencies.

Implement a city wide organization patterned on the Tucson Arts Brigade to encourage community art projects in ALL planning villages, not just the downtown.

The city should partner with local school districts in writing grants and recruiting volunteers to provide instructors and support in utilizing all the computer labs at local elementary, middle school, and high schools for ESL and GED instruction when the labs are not being used by the regular students.

Also the city should use the resources of the city parks to provide similar services.

Since the literacy level of the mother is the best indicator of literacy success for the child, the city should open more Adult Literacy/Communications Technology Centers where adults can access the Internet for ESL and GED instruction, as well as providing all residents with Internet access for gathering and sharing information.

Use as a model, the centers opened by Literacy Volunteers of Maricopa County in Sunnyslope and the near westside.

Cyclovia is an event whereby downtown city streets are closed off on a Sunday in order to allow cyclists, runners, walkers, free use of the streets. Tucson's and Bogata's Cyclovia is an excellent model:

For more information, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELa5CHsUepo

and/or

http://www.cycloviatucson.org

I know that Phoenix City officials have been planning a Cyclovia event for a while and I wish to encourage them and hope the idea can spread to the different Planning Villages within the city.

As a senior and former avid tennis player, I would like to see some of the tennis courts in the city parks converted to Pickle Ball courts and the Parks and Rec. department organize Pickle Ball leagues, especially for senior citizens