Oak Harbor officials are considering changing the organizational chart for the city and creating a new administrative position.

The proposed change will cost the city about $40,000 a year.

During a city council workshop on Wednesday, Oak Harbor City Manager Blaine Oborn proposed that the marina, parks and senior services divisions be placed under an umbrella “parks and recreation department” with a parks and recreation director who reports to him.

Right now, the marina and senior services report to the city administrator and parks reports to the public works director.

The parks manager position is currently vacant. The city has had trouble filling it after longtime Parks Director Hank Nydam retired in 2020.

Oborn said one of the main benefits of creating a parks and recreation department is that the director could focus on pursuing millions of dollars in grants for things like the Harbor Heights Complex, marina dredging and improvements, and senior services improvements.

He also said that unified leadership among the three divisions would improve the services they provide and improve coordination with the North Whidbey Pool, Park and Recreation department and other community organizations.

The cost to upgrade the current parks manager position to a parks and recreation director position is estimated at around $40,000. If the city council decided to move forward, it would require an ordinance change and the position would be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council.

Councilmember Bryan Stucky said that with the $40,000 increase, one grant secured by the director position would “pay for itself.”

Councilmember Jim Woessner was also in favor of the idea. He recalled a time when there were basketball and tennis lessons and arts and crafts classes at the parks.

“We have all this to offer but we’re underutilizing it,” he said.

Councilmember Eric Marshall said he was concerned because the city is already struggling to find a parks manager.

“My concern is that we’re going to create a director-level position, an administrative-level position and we’re still not going to have the staffing to do the job,” he said.

Mayor Pro Tem Beth Munns was also concerned that additional staff would have to be hired.

Oborn said additional staff may be required in the future, but a director position would make the manager position a less demanding job.

“We’ve been expecting the parks manager to be a director, unfortunately,” he said.

Oborn said that he has also had to take on duties that would be typically done by a parks and recreation director, such as lobbying for a youth athletic field grant.

“I think we’ll get a lot of interest in this position,” he said. “I think we’ll get a lot more than if we went with the status quo with the parks manager position.”

Councilmember Dan Evans said the proposed director position focuses too much on grants and that parks should be providing people with things they would be willing to pay for to create a more sustainable solution.

“The mindset needs to change to revenue,” he said. “We gotta start coming up with revenue.”

He pointed out that Oak Harbor has more parks than most cities of a similar size.

“We can’t even afford to maintain the parks that we have,” he said.

Mayor Robert Severns agreed that park staffing was an issue, and that the council members provided some great input on the proposal. No action was taken at the workshop.