MORGANTOWN — After more than a decade running the city’s parks, Melissa Wiles is retiring.
She informed the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners of her plans this week.
“I’ll just say that I feel like it’s time. I have been here for 22 years. I’ve experienced a lot of changes and a lot of good stuff. I just think it’s time,” she said. “It wasn’t a long-term plan. It just occurred to me that I am eligible and I ought to start thinking about it.”
She anticipates a final day sometime in early December.
Wiles majored in parks and recreation and public administration at WVU.
“Those are two of the degrees that are no longer available at WVU. So, maybe that should tell a person it’s time to retire,” she joked. “I know a lot of people in my generation that majored in parks and recreation, and our dream was to go to faraway places and live in the wilderness and whatnot, but, you know, many of us ended up in municipal recreation because it’s still public service. I’ve always, always valued that public service aspect of really working to provide recreational opportunities for the public.”
Wiles was initially hired as BOPARC’s business manager; advanced to assistant director and ultimately earned the executive director title in 2014.
She inherited a crumbling park system running on emergency repairs and funding due to a prolonged lack of consistent financial support.
“By the time I had become director, the lack of maintenance funding and long-term funding had really gotten ahead of us and we found ourselves in the situation that we needed a lot of maintenance and upgrades and just did not have the funding to make those things happen,” she said.
She’ll leave the city’s parks in a much better position.
BOPARC has been able to leverage its portion of the city’s 1% municipal sales tax to not only address years of deferred maintenance, but launch major projects, including the recently opened new Marilla Pool, an overhaul of the Morgantown Ice Arena currently under way, and coming soon, a total reconfiguration of lower Marilla Park.
“I’ve been here through everything – from an organization and system that was doing okay, to then a system that was failing, to, finally, picking up the pieces and being able to do the things that need to be done to provide quality recreation to the community.”
But it’s not the projects that are foremost in her mind.
“The main thing that has made me take pause and be thankful is the fact that we have been able to put together a staff that really, really cares about recreation in this community and puts their hearts and souls into providing that. You know, money is only half the equation. You can have all the money in the world and build something, but if you don’t have the staff that is interested in getting the knowledge and the experience in what you are providing, it’s just not going to be delivered correctly,” Wiles said. “So I’m really thankful for the staff we have. I couldn’t do it without them.”
Ultimately, Wiles said, script writers have got nothing on what she’s seen and experienced in her 22 years in the city’s park system.
“Oh, gosh,” she laughed. “I’ll just say there are so many things that completely outdo the [Parks and Recreation] TV show.”
