ASHLAND – Ashland area resident Jason Counts has been chosen as the City of Ashland’s new parks and recreation director.
As parks director, Counts will be responsible for overseeing all 15 of the city’s parks and recreational areas, including Brookside Golf Course.
Looking around Brookside Park Thursday, Counts made note of some of the improvements he and his staff will make.
“Look at those swings. They need a coat of paint,” he said. “And we need some mulch in here… There are old railroad ties that are rotting and need pulled up.”
The city has been without a parks director for several years, and mayor Matt Miller said he wanted to reinstate the position to fulfill his goal to “make Ashland’s parks sparkle.” The hire comes after the city eliminated the position of golf pro manager at Brookside Golf Course in February.
Counts accepted the job Friday and began his role Monday, Miller said.
Counts has over 20 years of management experience, most recently at Walmart, where he worked as assistant manager and then co-store manger at the Ashland and Mount Vernon stores. He was with Walmart for six years until a recent restructuring when the company eliminated co-managers.
“They offered for me to step down, but I chose not to,” Counts said. “I wanted to get into something a little more community-minded, a civil service type job more than retail. I’m both excited and honored to serve the people of Ashland.”
Counts said he feels the parks director job will allow him to give back to the people of Ashland. He and his wife, Traci, live just outside the city in Montgomery Township with their two teenage sons, Dylan and Zachary. The family has lived in the area 13 years.
Miller said Counts was hired because he has an extensive background in management and has demonstrated a strong ability to solve problems and implement new ideas.
“The thing that stood out about Jason was his background in leading teams of a variety of sizes and his ability to streamline things and find more cost-effective ways of doing things,” Miller said.
Counts said he had success at Walmart by using root cause analysis and asking “the five whys” to get to the bottom of a problem and improve processes.
“You just ask the question, ‘Why?’ And you ask it five times,” Counts said. “For example, Why does that swing set look like that? Well, it’s not painted. Why isn’t it painted? Because we don’t have bodies to do it, or we don’t have the funds, or whatever it may be. So why don’t we have the funds? Because we didn’t allocate them properly.”
Miller said Counts will be tasked with reevaluating the fee structure for parks services, looking for areas to modernize the parks and considering programming opportunities, among other things. One of his first priorities, Miller said, will be to make sure ongoing issues with the pond at Brookside Park are taken care of before the start of summer.
Also immediately, Counts is working to get the ball fields ready for baseball and softball tournaments and to hire seasonal workers. The city is looking for about 10 more seasonal employees to make up its full complement of 15 and is accepting applications through Transformation Network.
Eventually, Counts wants to modernize the parks with Wi-Fi and power stations, to create a mobile app for the parks and to consider implementing some of the community’s ideas, like dog runs and a skate/BMX course.
At Brookside Golf Course, Counts said he has already noticed a new level of energy. He said he feels course superintendent Billy Christian is doing a great job and added that he does not intend to redirect Christian.
“I can tell you right now, the way things are going is only positive,” he said.
