Elena and I have been trying to navigate the Park Authority website, finding summer camps for kids. I have never been on a more miserable website. It is virutally unusable. There is no way to even browse without signing up. The questions asked don’t match adults. (I obviously am not in first grade.)
There are codes to which there is no legend. You cannot tell which location you are signing up for. You cannot tell what is being offered or where it is. The Parks and Rec Authority gets enough money to have a website that can be navigated.
Prince William County is not out in the boondocks. Prince William County people are Internet savvy. To present this mess to the public is simply unacceptable. If this is packaged programming, and this best there is, then hire someone to write our own software. This is absurd, ridiculous and embarrassing.
The county would be money ahead if they had 1 mailer and did everything else on the Internet rather than having massive printing bills and tying up employees to answer questions that should be accessible on the Internet.
Prince William County residents should demand better. The current Internet system is unacceptable.
Totally agree…the County’s Park Authority is a joke. They need to clean out the Board and start over….looking at other NoVa localities, there is no excuse for how they operate.
I agree the website sucks! However, if you know which park or rec center you are interested in, then visit that site, the bigger ones have their own sites. The park specific websites are far superior to the general PA website. We have to remember the PA is broke! Then to add insult to injury they continue to throw good money after bad with the golfing.
The PA does mail a booklet with classes and other activities quarterly. There are even coupons and special offers for parks, classes, etc. often times. I’ve taken and my family have taken numerous classes over the decades. The employees at The Barn(Ben Lomond Community Center) and Dale City Rec. Center both have great people answering their phones and can answer any question thrown at them. I mention these two because these are the two I’m most familiar with.
Don’t even get me started on the signing up to get certain information from the PA’s website. The county website does NOT do this, and the PA should NOT either. One should be able to bypass that nonsense, unless your personal information is needed to sign up for the class etc..
Just look at this website for BenLomond(Splashdown) versus the county’s section on Belmont. There’s a glaring difference.
From the PA site this what you get.
http://pwcparks.org/ParksFieldsTrails/tabid/59/Default.aspx
From the park’s website.
http://www.splashdownwaterpark.com/
WTH? I had to scroll down to find BenLomond Park, because it’s billed at Splashdown Water park at BenLomond. Excuse me the last time I checked or read a map that is BenLomond Park! Splashdown just happens to be located there. BenLomond Park is much larger than one might think. It actually is very long and extends to Lomond Dr. However, nobody goes walking the 100 yr flood plain. There’s is now a nice path blazed through that area due to the work on the sewer line. Then the newest feature to be added to the park this year will be located within 100 feet of homes will be the new cell tower.
They also are completely lacking in transparency. You can listen to a recording of their Board meetings online, but they post no agendas, reports or briefs related to their meetings. You must listen to an entire meeting recording just to find out what they discussed. They post no information about arts council meetings, board members or their actions. Nonetheless, the Board of County Supervisors pours millions into this black hole.
It’s time for some openness and accountability from the Park Authority.
@Need to Know
Aren’t the PA Board members appointed? Unfortunately, the site gives little to no information about the member. Hopefully these board members are reporting back to the BoS. They have no problem coming before the BoS when they want something.$$$$
You might want to take another look at the meeting section of their site. I was able to see an agenda for last week’s meeting. I don’t see one posted for upcoming meeting on the 25th, but it’s probably to early for that yet. We’ll have to check back closer to the meeting date.
http://pwcparks.org/AboutUs/BoardMeetings/tabid/105/ctl/Details/Mid/1520/ItemID/1084/Default.aspx?ContainerSrc=%5BL%5DContainers/PWCcontainers/calendarPrint&SkinSrc=%5BG%5DSkins/PWCskin/skin_2columns_child
Thanks NTK and Laf for your contributions. I agree that the individual park sites are better but….if you are looking for a specific class rather than what’s starring at your park, you are out of luck. There is simply no excuse for such an impossible website.
Also,, residents might not know all the parks in the area or where they are located. There was one in Dale City I had never heard of. It would be better for PA to do less better, if they are so short of money. I would not have cared if my taxes has been raised a cent or two to have more accessible internet information.
And while we are at it, the county website also sucks. Unless you know what you are looking for, navigation is horrible. I expect better for my wino tax dollars.
That county website needs to be redone so that the average person can locate the information they are looking for.
The more I read, the more irritated I become. We shouldn’t have to be having this discussion. I am opposed to going after individuals on this blog. This isn’t about individuals. This is about our elected officials taking a good look at the county website and seeing how dysfunctional it really is.
Then we can get to the Park Authority site. I finally gave up. This is 2011. Most people do their business on the internet, if they can.
Thanks for the reminder that not everyone knows what park, etc. they are looking for when visiting the website. I think if I were a newcomer and visited the website for the PA, I would just give up. I’d have to let my fingers do the walking and call the PA on the phone.
We know you oppose idividuals being gone after. Do you think was done on this thread? Or just making a general statement?
I wonder if anyone even bothers to show up to one of these meetings? They might have few when it’s a big deal for something like Silver Lake.
No, I was covering my own butt for calling out the person who designed the county and PA websites. Sorry, that wasn’t clear.
Somewhere someone might be catching hell for doing a crap job. Oh well….
Ultimately, it is the supervisors who must be made to understand how terrible the county site is to navigate and how Park Authority is far worse.
Laf brings up a good point re Splashdown. It is part of Ben Lomond Park. The word Ben Lomond should be on everything involving that area. I never did figure out its code yesterday.
THe sad reality is that if the website could be more easily navigaged, the park authority would make a helluva lot more money, but more importantly, parents would have greater accessibliltiy to summer activities for their children!
Contract Alanna.
@Lafayette
Thanks Lafayette. I retract partially my criticism above. You are better at navigating the site than I was, but that brings us back to the original point Moon and Elena made. The web site should be much more user friendly, and this material should be easy to find. Also, they should provide board briefs as to how they voted on agenda items so people don’t have to listen to hours of audio to find out. Also, we need more information on the board, as you wrote, as well as about other groups making decisions about our money and community, such as the arts grants panel. Did you find anything about who is on that this year and what they did?
I was the one criticizing. You all are innocent. @Lafayette and NTK.
So much for the chit-chat about the PA website–the question is: Has anyone done anything but bitch?
I figured bitching was a good place to start. Usually county people read the blogs. Maybe they don’t realize how badly the blog sucks. And yes,, Elena has complained, perhaps not to the right people. Change is a process, not an event.
I don’t think it’s all been bitching, George. I shared information with others, and complained too. And yes, I have contacted the PA about their website in the past. I guess it’s time to contact them again.
I’m not sure contacting the PA is the way to go–kinda like asking the fox for a security plan for the hen house. The place to put the pressure is on the Board of Stupidvisors–ooppss–I mean Supervisors. I wonder if they will read that! The PA is not elected, they are.
Change might be a “process” but it has to start with an “event.”
The event has happened. I posted the bitching. Once something is posted, people can see that they aren’t alone in thinking that the the website sucks and is impossible to navigate.
Now, the next step is for people to contact their supervisor. George is right that they are the ones to bring about change.
How about it, supervisors? We know you are out there.
@George S. Harris
I’m sure a couple of them or their staffers read that! 🙂 That term is/was often used by Bob Wills when speaking of them.
Anyone know where has Bob Wills been lately? He always brings an interesting take on situations in the county. One that some supers don’t seem to take to kindly too either.
We are sorry you are experiencing difficulty finding a class for your child. Other users have found it helpful to download and print the instructions for use of the web-based reservation system ocated here: https://www.pwcparks.org/webtrac/scripts/webtrac.wsc/wbsplash.html
You do not need an account to view any of the quick links or activity sections.
Also, you might find that viewing the on-line catalogis more helpful to you: http://pwcparks.org/Camps/tabid/552/Default.aspx
If neither of these suggestions help, please call any one of our indoor customer service help desks and staff will be pleased to assist you with any questions that you have.
Thank you Rick. Your response got buried in our spam graveyard and I just discovered it.
Thank you again for the suggestions. Perhaps next season you all could bring in some parent users to test the site for user friendliness. This was a tough one.
Moon