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July 25, 2008
Pikesville Rec Council In Turmoil
Phil Jacobs
Executive Editor
After months of infighting, the Pikesville Recreation Council (PRC) had its certification with the Baltimore County Board of Recreation and Parks revoked July 11. Only five days later, a group of 10 PRC veterans met to discuss forming a new council, angering the group’s president of 14 years, Michel A. Snitzer.
The PRC, which has now retained legal counsel to appeal its decertification, has approximately 5,000 student athletes in leagues including Wellwood Baseball, Pikesville Basketball, Pikesville Soccer, Pikesville Softball, Pikesville Lacrosse and Pikesville Football.
The decertification came after the county board determined that the PRC, under Mr. Snitzer, did not fulfill requests for financial records, meeting minutes and other information.
Despite the decertification, the PRC will operate in a business-as-usual mode, according to Mr. Snitzer. Registration for fall programs is ongoing, he said.
Meanwhile, Robert J. Barrett, director of the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks, is asking county attorneys to examine the legality of the board’s decertification. He is a county employee and not a voting member of that body.
The requested documents included copies of check stubs, balance sheets and other financial information, according to Mr. Barrett.
“The board indicated that it gave Pikesville a deadline to produce documents, both financial and operational,” Mr. Barrett said. “In my opinion, the timeline wasn’t fair for volunteers to produce them. I understand that Pikesville still provided 75 percent of what was asked of them. … Decertification really doesn’t mean much of anything as far as programming is concerned. What it could mean is that another organization could request certification, [but] the former rec council can still apply for recertification.”
It also means that as long as PRC is decertified, other groups have an equal opportunity for field use instead of the PRC’s “first rights.” Regarding PRC’s internal dispute, Mr. Barrett said, “I’m not going to take a side. They’ll have to work out their differences.”
In an interview with the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES, Mr. Snitzer said, “We haven’t been deceitful. We’re working together with the Baltimore County Board of Recreation and Parks. Whatever they need, they can have.”
In a July 15 letter sent to chair-persons and volunteers, Mr. Snitzer wrote, “Since at present there is still no other recognized recreation organization within our boundaries, all programs are still in the continued position of being provided with the necessary facilities to operate.”
Alluding to the rancor aroused, he said, “Any talk of the creation of a ‘new’ recreation council should be considered pretentious at best, whereas any concerns or problems would be best addressed internally.”
Most likely grabbing the county’s attention were allegations made by Pikesville resident Aaron Max. The three major areas that he raised concerns about under Mr. Snitzer’s supervision of the PRC include financial matters, conflicts of interest and board development.
Specifically, Mr. Max questioned the availability of baseball fields during the June 6-8 LaxMax lacrosse tournament. The private event, which attracts more than 300 boys and girls teams, is coordinated by Mr. Snitzer.
“Mike runs LaxMax, and it happens through the playoff week for baseball,” Mr. Max said. “I think sometimes that LaxMax runs the rec council. It’s just not right.”
As president of MASCOM Inc., Mr. Snitzer coordinates, besides LaxMax, tournaments in Maryland and elsewhere. He also has created award-winning Web sites such as laxmax.com , pikesvillesports.com and scoreboardnews.com .
Mr. Max also challenged Mr. Snitzer’s seven consecutive two-year terms as PRC’s head. Mr. Snitzer responded that during this time, no one else volunteered to take the job.
The baseball fields were made available to LaxMax for make-up games and playoffs, Mr. Snitzer said. Furthermore, he said LaxMax is important to the area as it allows local recreation programs to sell concessions for their own profit.
Mr. Snitzer said his involvement with LaxMax and other tournaments are done on his own professional time and not in conflict with his PRC duties. Of Mr. Max’s concerns, he said, “The squeaky wheel always gets the oil. Well, he’s going to get all the oil he can handle. This is a volunteer position that I’ve done for years. I don’t need the tsouris [trouble].”
Sitting behind his desk in his Owings Mills office, Mr. Snitzer said he could not answer many questions about the matter because of potential litigation that would charge Mr. Max with slander.
But at a meeting July 16 held in a private home in Pikesville, the talk was about delegating tasks to form a new council and seek certification. On hand, according to Mr. Max, were County Recreation and Parks staffers who deal with permits. The new rec council, as of yet unnamed, is putting together its bylaws.
“This is not a war between us and the Pikesville Rec Council, and we’re not interested in getting Mike Snitzer in trouble,” said Mr. Max. “We have a lot to do, and we don’t feel like battling with him. We don’t have time to focus on the past, other than to learn from their mistakes.”
In his letter to volunteers, Mr. Snitzer attributed the decertification to Mr. Max’s contact with the Recreation and Parks board. Mr. Max’s actions have made the PRC “one of the main topics of [County Board of Recreation and Parks] conversation of each of their meetings,” Mr. Snitzer wrote.
He also wrote that all requested documents were turned into the county on time, “but the board proceeded with the decertification anyway.”
Mr. Max, according to Mr. Snitzer, advanced his agenda by bringing this issue to the JEWISH TIMES. (Different PRC activists brought the matter to the attention of the JEWISH TIMES about six months ago.)
Mr. Snitzer wrote that he felt the PRC was denied due process, and therefore turned its financial documents over to its legal counsel “to protect the reputation of the programs, and any of the volunteers and individuals associated with the Pikesville Recreation Council.”
Longtime community coach and basketball coordinator Steve Barber raised another layer of concern, that the county inquiry gives comfort to those with an anti-Semitic bias.
“I’ve already heard anti-Semitism concerning Pikesville Rec,” said Mr. Barber. “We grow horns as soon as we go out of the immediate area.”
Mr. Max’s complaints, he said, “play into the hands of the non-Jews. … It’s one guy’s personal vendetta that is wreaking havoc on this council.”
Mr. Max disagreed, noting how difficult it was to find minutes of meetings, and sometimes even times and dates of those meetings.
“In the two years I’ve gone to meetings, I’ve never seen a budget,” he said. “I’ve never seen a vote on allocations of dollars.”
In addition, the PRC bylaws have not been changed since 1993, he said. “There are never amendments to the bylaws,” he said. “I don’t remember one vote in the two years I’ve been going. It just troubled me.”
Mr. Max also said he was summarily dismissed as a board member by Mr. Snitzer when he filed an appeal last September concerning the bylaws. As a result, Mr. Snitzer was sent a letter dated Feb. 8, 2008, from Jim Emerick, chairman of the County Board of Recreation and Parks. It noted that concern observed at a Nov. 27, 2007, PRC meeting included: lack of a treasurer’s report; absence of minutes; no council action taken; and lack of community involvement. The note also cited a lack of transparency on records of membership, attendance, and meeting minutes not presented and not preserved.
Furthermore, according to the letter, fiscal matters lacked accounting, budgets, treasurer’s reports, fund-raising, and prompt payment of vendors. There also were, according to the letter, possible conflicts of interest and the lack of a detailed tournament reporting.
Mr. Max noted that in May 2007, the PRC distributed a list of amendments to attendees. But those amendments, he wrote to the county, were “invalid,” because they were not properly accepted by the PRC-sponsored organizations, and “most contradict the spirit of the constitution and bylaws of any well-intentioned organization.”
For example, he said, most, if not all, PRC executive board members violated the bylaw limiting terms of office to two 2-year-terms, he wrote. “Although arguments have probably been made that no other volunteers are willing to step up, that argument lacks credibility,” Mr. Max wrote. “This is evidenced by the fact that the PRC has failed to properly set up and sustain a nomination committee or comply with the requirement that a nomination committee present a slate of officers at the annual March meeting.”
In his letter to Mr. Emrick, Mr. Max further suggested that a committee be created to review the PRC’s financial standing, to replace the existing officers, and to create a board development plan for recruitment of new members.
But Mr. Snitzer showed the JEWISH TIMES a PRC document showing a 2002 amendment doing away with term limits of officers.
On the possibility of a new organization, Mr. Snitzer said, “Anybody is allowed to petition the county to form another organization. It’s a free country.”
Staying On Course
Despite the ongoing dispute within the Pikesville Recreation Council, officials on all sides stress that the operations of the group’s leagues will not be interrupted.
“I’m not going to take my eye off the ball of the children. They will be serviced, and hopefully all of this can get worked out,” said Robert J. Barrett, director of the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks.
The fall leagues should not be impacted by this certification squabble, agreed Michael Snitzer and Aaron Max.