Ian Cropper, Rick Vann and Daniel Weiner say why they’re running, what they’d like to get done

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news 

For the upcoming Ashland Parks and Recreation Commission election, all candidates were contacted by Ashland.news for interviews. All who responded were asked the same questions. Answers from candidates competing for the same position were paired together. 

Ian Cropper’s professional experience was listed as a software engineer with no prior government experience in election materials. On a personal website, Cropper described himself as a “creative” in the industry of software engineering since 2011, as previously reported by Ashland.news. Rick Vann’s background includes restaurant supply, sales and project management, according to a Linkedin page.  

Danel Weiner is a physician of osteopathic medicine with Rogue Community Health, according to its website. Wilderness medicine and raft guide were listed as additional professional experience in election materials. No prior government experience was listed. 

What prompted you to run for the commission? 

Weiner: Living here in Ashland for the past decade I spent a ton of time out in the parks. I use the parks almost daily. I feel like there was sort of a call for folks to get involved and I tend to be a person who likes to get involved to see if I can help. 

I’ll just say also, though as a physician in this community dealing with both young and old kids and seniors I see the value of the recreation programs and senior services, those don’t seem to be getting a ton of attention lately. It all seems to be around pickleball and mountain biking. I wanted to see if I can broaden the conversation with everything the Parks & Recreation department are supposed to be involved with. 

Cropper: Well, there’s a story to it. Moving back to our hometown in Ashland, it was a good time in my life to start picking up more trail running on the trails I grew up on and spent a lot of time on. I was spending countless hours just up in the mountains running and seeing just how amazing it was up there. Having moved from Colorado, the mecca of the outdoors, it was interesting to be up on those trials and just how infrequently I would come across other people. And I love playing tour guide or evangelist. 

As I was really re-falling in love with the outdoor aspects of the valley, it  was clear to me how much of an amazing resource it is that we have. So, contrasting that with when I was going to elementary school there were five open, now we have three open. A lot more people were attending the Shakespeare Festival and there was a fair amount of pride that comes from that and there still is. But interest in Shakespeare is waning and we have this amazing resource that is, I won’t say its going untapped, but it’s certainly not being utilized to the extent that it could be, not just in tourism but the overall appeal of the city. That’s the sort of thing people move to a place for. 

The final straw, I guess, was when Black Sheep closed. That was a restaurant I had grown up loving. … That was kind of like the impetus, just like alright, there are things that can be done to help the city of Ashland realize its awesomeness that I would love to instigate and be a part of. … One of my platforms is to have Parks & Recreation be a force for helping Ashland’s local economy. 

Vann: What prompted me to run originally is the fact that I’ve lived here for over a decade and I’ve used the Parks & Recreation system extensively and I thought it’s time for me to walk my talk and give something back to the community. And, you know, help improve, see what I can do to help improve this great city — village as I call it. Giving back, that was my great motivation. 

Because APRC has so many various assets and responsibilities, let’s break it into two overlapping halves, parks and recreation. What is your vision for the future of Ashland’s parks? 

Weiner: Parks are a key asset to Ashland, both the community, the folks that live here, but also to the economy of Ashland. They’re a prime attractant for visitors and can be used more. I’d like to see our parks really leveraged in a thoughtful way, as a current asset for community members but as potential economic drivers. What does that mean exactly? Well I don’t know, I’d say we have to maintain what we got.

I feel like over the past decade I’ve seen care and maintenance of our parks really decline. Lithia Park is a flagship, it’s a place that so many visitors to this community come to and, while we did add the Japanese Garden, we’ve let so much of the rest of it just go into decay, sadly. Efforts are being made to move that forward, but I think that we really have to treat them with respect and focus on maintenance, not over-acquire and overspend if we can’t afford to maintain them. Really stabilizing what we have and making it shine as it has in the past. 

Cropper:  Ashland parks has a lot of ground to cover, literally. And there are things that the Parks Department already has, like projects that haven’t been realized yet. Like the park that’s happening off of East Main. … With respect to parks, I would be hesitant to expand and quicker to optimize. 

There’s what I would consider low-hanging fruit. When you walk across the street to go into Lithia Park, there probably shouldn’t be an orange stripe on the ground to mark a place of uneven pavement. That’s just not a great way to leave a first impression. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit. 

Parks forever have been a palace where people in the community come together to play, to gather, for political events, forums, debates. Parks are designed and intended to be a place for people to enjoy and gather and if that’s not what’s happening there then we really need to take a look at what’s getting in the way of that. We have these spaces. It costs money to maintain them. Maybe they’re not, just not very fun. 

The coolest playground set we have in Ashland is Briscoe and that’s not even a public park. But that’s where all the parents go, where the kids have the most fun. … Living in Colorado, and spending some time in Bozeman, Montana, let me tell you, those people know how to build parks. They’re creative, they’re engaging, they’re built the way you would want them to be. 

Every time I drive past Garfield Park and I largely see it empty, I’m just like, there’s something we could do to make that space more awesome. … Before trying to acquire more space I would be looking to optimize the spaces we have. 

Vann: My vision for the parks is to reconnect the community, the Ashland locals with the parks system. Lithia Park being really the crown jewel. But I want to really bridge the generation gap and create areas within the parks, Lithia specifically, that appeal to a broader part of the local public. I know we have 50-plus parks, but Lithia’s such a cornerstone. I would like a Native American presence in the park, I would like to honor the women who created it, and I also want some short-term, long-term type goals to be in place that tie into climate change in the parks. 

Because there’s drought, heat and water shortages. Part of what I wanted to do was look at the parks system especially and look at parks systems specially and figure out how to begin working on these changes that relate to climate change to make parks more climate friendly now. Those are just some of my objectives in the parks area. 

What about recreation, what do you feel APRC should be doing or is doing well for recreation? 

Weiner: You know I think they’ve done a pretty good job with recreation in terms of offerings. Pre-pandemic they had a ton of programs going, I feel like a lot of those programs faded away for obvious reasons. I feel like they’re starting to come back but I think we can expand and find out exactly what recreation programs this community wants and are going to work and really support this community. I don’t know, that’s a question for the community. What do they want?

Then we need to figure out if the Parks & Recreation department can deliver on those things. There used to be language classes and dance programs and a whole array o f programs for all ages, I think they also need to focus on kids programs, baseball and biking and other activities.

When I was a kid, man you got kicked out in the morning and you got back by dinner time. And it’s a different world now. But now kids, for a whole host of reasons, safety predominately, are really more engaged in structured programmatic stuff, so if I’m looking at a community and that’s not there, I’m not moving there. If we don’t offer the things that younger families are going to want, they’re not going to come here. We’ve really got to focus on that that’s got to be part of a wellbalanced offering. 

Cropper: If you follow the Instagram feed, they’re doing a fair bit. They’re having events they’re hosting gatherings. They’re doing a lot of things well. The only thing that I might change about that is … Rick Vann and I kind of disagree on this point, these are areas that could be monetized in some ways. Even free events, with food carts, there could be a charge for food carts to come serve there, or alcohol licenses. Getting back to the original intent of running. Our parks are expensive and Ashland already pays a lot in taxes. And we also charge probably more local residents than out-of-town people. I’m sure that the percentage of who’s actually providing the food and beverage tax funding is likely coming more from local residents than out of towners. So how do we get parks to be more financially independent. … Maybe we could make parks not profitable, but maybe it would be reasonable to then pull that into that general fund and not completely tank our budget. 

On the recreation side, I think they’re doing a pretty good job. The Salmon Festival was a success and they’ve done great things with the guitar performance at the senior center the other day. More things like that that get people out in the parks and experience being together in parks. It’s one thing to be there on your own, but it’s another thing to see your community gathered there together. Especially if you’re being provided with a concert or something, it’s like “Man, what a cool community we’ve got here.” 

Vann: Well one thing I think they should be doing is soliciting more local and public input on what the public wants. As things shift around, for example, golf is golf, tennis has been around a long time. Pickleball for example. Which is the fastest growing sport in America and it’s a great driver of mental health and socialization and yet it gets very little publicity and press and so in the reaction system I’d like to have a community forum almost immediately if I get elected, and be very valuable to people for input. 

I want to find out what the community wants, not just what Rick Vann wants in the recreation arena. And then prioritize and work to those, versus just what’s on the parks and rec master plan which I’ve looked at. I want to get the locals involved in a real simple sense. 

How do you see the best possible relationship between APRC and City Council? 

Weiner:  It’s so critical. I don’t really know the deets on what happened back in the day. I understand one of the current parks candidates resigned from what I understand based on those challenges. You’re not going to agree with every decision made or everything everybody does. But they’re huge budgets, the two must work together. It feels like there’s been an effort to try to separate the two even further and create formal divisions between the two. 

I don’t think that’s the right approach. I think they’ve got to work together and figure out a compromise path forward. That’s the way the city thrives, that’s the way our parks thrive and that’s the way our community thrives. 

Cropper: Being made aware and essentially coordinated with, but not interfering. Ideally we all have the same goals, make Ashland a better place to live and to visit. I worry that over-involvement, that it could turn into a lot of memo signing and form signing, “Oh I’m waiting on this person, to hear back on this, I’m waiting on this signature.” I get real antsy when projects get stalled, maybe that comes from growing up in a large family. Where it took forever to just get in the car and do something, that now I’m, like, “alright, lets just err on the side of action and just get through as much bureaucracy as we can.” 

Right now, we’ve got the liaisons and that seems like a great way to kind of coordinate with each other if there are things that are going on that need kind of an organized approach. But I think it would be kind of like the beginning of the end of parks as an independent organization if we got too wrapped up in each other’s wheels. 

Vann: Well, that’s a very interesting question. Number one, I don’t think the relationship right now is very strong. I want to improve the alignment between City Council and APRC. For example, the staff that maintains the parks is, I believe, supervised by the parks director, but maintenance is the responsibility of the city manager, so there’s a disconnect there, I think, between the City Council and APRC in general. So that needs to change. Also, I think we need to look at best practices in other cities, like Bend. Bend has a very highly developed parks and recreation system and they have a better alignment between the city government and the Bend Park & Recreation system. It’s a stronger alignment, so that’s another one of my goals, to improve that alignment. 

What about the way APRC should fit within the rest of the city, such as working with other city departments? 

Weiner: Exactly which departments and how I don’t know, but they got to work with everybody and not just internally — externally we go to work with forest service, we got to work with BLM — who else is sort of city or park adjacent that we need to work with … with and interface with to really leverage this area that we work in. It’s not just within our borders — we’ve got to look at this region as part of our community to really partner and maximize opportunity. 

Cropper: I would like it to work as efficiently as it possibly can. It seems smart to me that APRC would be the ones overseeing maintaining medians and things, that way the bulk of the lawnmowers can be maintained with parks. Using that as an example, it’s a unique situation that APRC is in, because it is rare for it to be its own elected body. … There are things where it’s on us to be responsible, to be on the lookout for opportunities where we can optimize and reduce waste. Reduce unnecessary overlap. Just be smart with the funds that we have, if we’ve got work going on that doesn’t need to be — that money came from someplace and is now not available for either Ashland or the general fund to use. 

I haven’t looked into how many opportunities like that there could be elsewhere. … I say that a lot at work, if there is a superpower that I have, it’s the ability to ask the stupid questions that everyone things they already know the answer to and I have no qualms about being in a room and raising my hand and saying, “Wait, but why do we do it that way?” 

Vann: Good question, I haven’t gotten that far yet. Obviously there needs to be a lot of alignment. Obviously with water and transportation — those departments — because those are big issues affecting the parks. And with climate change, water for example, drought and heat and everything else. I would like to extend the season in parks like Lithia by creating short-term, long-term plans for structural things that could mitigate drought, heat — you know, covered areas — that sort of thing. Because the climate is changing. So working with departments like transportation, water, tourism, the Chamber of Commerce and all that. I think those need to be more focused meetings and not just drive-bys like you might get at a City Council meeting. I’d like to set up some interaction between those departments and set up focus sessions that I call green-light sessions for ideas. And prioritize and broadcast that to the public in these interdepartmental things. 

Is there anything you want voters to know that I haven’t asked about? 

Weiner: I think that it’s important that people understand I’m coming in without a personal agenda and to be a voice for what the people want and not necessarily with a goal in mind to deliver on some personal project or something. This is a representative democracy. … I’d like to hear what the people want and work hard to deliver in a financially responsible way and be open about the things we can’t. 

I think that like every decision you make has to consider how it is serving our current community and how it is going to work to attract new community members and, lastly, how it can be an economic driver and partner within the community, and we got to expand beyond just an OSF (Oregon Shakespeare Festival)-based economy. I think our access to recreation opportunities in a tourist town such as this is a huge opportunity, we shouldnt squander it. … I don’t think those three questions have been considered with each decision made and I think if we do that we’ll make good decisions that will really support this community moving forward for generations. 

Cropper: Unfounded opinions. Are you familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect? Basically the less we know about something, the more likely we are to voice our opinion on something. Whereas the more we know about something, the less likely we are to voice our opinion on something. The scientist is more likely to keep his mouth shut on the subject. … With respect to parks and policy, I’m wanting to dig into the roots of the problems. 

To give you an example, like mountain biking on the trails. There is a lot of red tape around building new trails. The outcome is that we have a lot of illegal trails and we’ve got people riding on pedestrian-only trails. This causes frustration with mountain bikers. The appearance is they are breaking the rules, they need to be punished, we need to have officers up here enforcing the rules and put signs every 50 feet. That’s likely to be costly and not fix the problem. Whereas, a biking only trail could be built as an adjacent trail and now no one has to worry about being hit by mountain bikers. They have their own trail. To a lot of people that looks like, “We’re giving in to the mountain bikers and giving them what they want,” without taking a step back to realize, then everyone’s getting what they want. 

I’m not interested in the superficial solutions. I’m interested in understanding the root of those problems and then solving those problems. 

Vann: If they do grace me with a vote in the election, I want to be the candidate that is accessible, 24/7. I want my contact information out there and, again, a community forum of sorts. My agenda, if I do get this position, is not just to be part of the board and part of the current system.

I want to make fundamental changes based on their input. … I think it’s a really important point and I have a lot of specific objectives, too, but primarily I think improving communication intergenerational work is huge with me, and then mental health alignment with the parks and rec system — which may sound strange, but the parks and rec system is a huge driver, not only of revenue for the city, which is great, but also the community mental health. I’d like to involve mental health professionals in planning for the parks and rec system. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].

Related story: Parks & Recreation Commission Position 1 candidate Q&A (Nov. 4, 2024)