I’ll preface this first with an apology to anyone whose name I misspell as I didn’t always have a chance to ask how the name was spelled.
It started with an email on May 10th from our hosting provider informing us that the DNS for monopolyinthepark.com had been changed. Questions immediately arose as we didn’t have the domain registered with either of our two registrars. I immediately contacted Network Solutions, one of our domain registrars and inquired about the domain, which I was informed was registered to a city email address, sanjoseca.gov, to a Jill Cody. Jill Cody hasn’t had a sanjoseca.gov email since 2004.
May 11th – I worked with our office manager at Team San Jose and was able to renew the domain under our umbrella and locate the files for the website. The website begins working again and I began to ask around in our office who is managing this facility. After speaking with many of my coworkers and our executive team I discovered that while one of our former webmasters had maintained the site (and this information was never passed along to either me or my predecessor) that we did not manage the facility. With this I set off to find the people in charge and ideally hand over the site to them.
I call the number 408-995-MITP (6487) on the website. It goes to a mailbox and I leave a message. I did this again the following day.
May 12th – The information on the website pointed to Jill Cody, Dan Orloff and San Jose Beautiful as facilitators. I call San Jose Beautiful first, and find their 408-277-5208 number to be disconnected. I also find that their new number 408-723-1574 is also disconnected. I email them at inquire@sjbeautiful.org through a page I found on a Google search of their site and it bounces back.
May 14th – I know I can’t email Jill Cody at the sanjoseca.gov email, but a LinkedIn search finds her and I put in a request to join my network to her with a message that I’m trying to find out about Monopolyinthepark.com
While I wait for her response I contact Dan Orloff or Orloff/Williams and leave a message. He’s on vacation and probably won’t get back to me, but I find out from another coworker that he is close with one of our employees and so I ask her to have him get in touch with me. He calls me back and gives me the brief history on the project, from the opening to the demise. He directs me to check in with Councilman Sam Liccardo’s aid.
I call up the aid and have my information taken down and told I’ll be called by Wednesday morning of the following week. During this time I also put in an email request via the city’s website about this project.
May 16th – Jill Cody gets in touch with me on LinkedIn and gives me more background on the project. It basically came down to the fact that with all the change over that took place at the city the ball was dropped on anyone taking over the facility.
May 17th – Since the contact information on the website is wrong, I change it to mine so at least I can help direct people to the proper place once I find who is in charge or once we take over the project.
May 18th – This results in the city replying to my email request for information with my own contact information as who is managing it. I respond to the email with my story of what has happened and get directed to the City Manager office at 408-535-8100. I call and am directed to a Kerry Adams-hapner with Art in Public Places department at 408-277-5144. She directs me to Phil Irngenderg at 408-794-6510 with the Parks and Recreation Services department. He then refers me back to the City Manager office, though he gives me two names, Ernest Guzman and Devony Tailor, both numbers for these 408-723-4114 and 408-723-1574 have been changed. The new numbers are 408-794-6575 and 408-794-6567 which go to voicemails with no name associated with them. I leave two messages.
I then call up the City Manager office again and go over my story, who first directs me to San Jose Beautiful, but when I inform her that those numbers and emails are no longer in service, she tells me that she’ll take down my name and number and call me back.
It’s now Wednesday the 19th and I have no answers.
I’d really like for Team San Jose to be able to take over the facility. If for some reason we can’t I’d really like to start up an organization to begin managing this facility appropriately. Unfortunately all I seem to be doing is hitting walls right now. If anyone has some suggestions for me feel free to drop a comment here.