Little Rock planning, parks chiefs to leave posts in June

City starts search for replacements

Truman Tolefree (left), director of the Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department, and Tony Bozynski, director of the Little Rock Planning and Development Department, both plan to retire this year.
Truman Tolefree (left), director of the Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department, and Tony Bozynski, director of the Little Rock Planning and Development Department, both plan to retire this year.

Two Little Rock department heads have announced their retirements.

That leaves City Manager Bruce Moore on a national search to find replacements for Parks and Recreation Director Truman Tolefree and Planning and Development Director Tony Bozynski.

Tolefree and Bozynski plan to leave in June.

"Tony has been a valuable member of the city's management team. He has helped lead development in every sector of Little Rock. His passion for planning is unmatched in Central Arkansas," Moore said in an email.

"I first met Truman when I was an intern and he was the Assistant Parks Director. I always found him to be very professional and responsive. It was a great pleasure when I was able to bring him back as the Director of Parks and Recreation. Our parks system has grown tremendously under Truman's leadership. It not only is growing, but it really is thriving."

"Both of them will be greatly missed," he added.

Moore has already begun the national search for both positions. Each department has a national association affiliated with it and Moore will place recruitment ads with those groups.

Bozynski, 64, has worked for Little Rock since 1978, when he started as a neighborhood planner. He moved up the ladder to become a zoning administrator, planning manager and assistant director in his department, then interim director in the Housing and Neighborhood Programs Department, before landing the Planning and Development top job in May 2004, where he's served ever since.

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During retirement, he plans to "do things when I want to," travel, spend more time with his grandchildren, and ride his bicycle and go fishing more, he said.

He said he's glad he's gotten to see development and redevelopment spread across the city over time.

"It's taking place citywide. There are projects in southwest Little Rock, obviously in West Little Rock, in the 12th Street Corridor with the 12th Street station and Children's library. Now we are seeing some development taking place east of Interstate 30, which has been slowly happening starting with the Clinton Library, Heifer and now Cromwell's project. We've got new residential development out on Vimy Ridge Road and obviously the FedEx facility in southwest," Bozynski said.

"You can point to development and redevelopment citywide, and that's a big plus," he said.

Both he and Tolefree said they would miss the camaraderie of their co-workers day in and out.

Tolefree, 68, started his tenure at Little Rock as a part-time employee in the Human Resources office in 1975. Six months later he joined the parks department as a resource superintendent and became an administrative service manager in the late 1980s. By 1990 he was promoted to assistant director, but he left the city in 1995 to work in Atlanta's parks department for about a decade.

Tolefree returned to Little Rock in spring of 2006 as the parks director, a position he's held since.

Tolefree is also the pastor at Pilgrim Rest AME Church in Monticello. He will focus on his ministry in his retirement, he said. He pointed to the number 40 as a sign that it's time for him to move on from public service.

"I will tell you, there's really something biblical about the number 40. Moses was 40 years old when he received his call from God and had his burning bush experience. Forty years later he was told to return to Egypt to lead the Israelites to freedom. Forty years later he died. The Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years. ... Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted for 40 days and nights. During the days of Noah, it rained 40 days and nights.

"Also, 40 years expired between the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and the election of the first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008," Tolefree said. "I feel good about the accomplishments we've been able to achieve in the department and I think it's in a good place. We've got good people in place and with a little over 40 years of public service with parks and recreation, I feel now is a good time for me to move on."

Tolefree worked in Little Rock's parks department when the Jim Dailey Fitness and Aquatics Center and the Southwest Community Center were built in the early 1990s, and since returning as director he's overseen the rebuilding of the old adults' center on 12th Street, now called the Centre at University Park, and the new construction of the West Central Community Center.

The new parks director will take over updating the parks and recreation 10-year plan, which has been worked on for more than a year and is scheduled to be complete this year.

With two top directors heading out midsummer, it leaves Moore with about four months to refill two important roles. But he's handled more than one top-level position becoming vacant at once.

In the first half of 2014, five department heads either retired or left for new jobs, leaving Moore with several national searches. The city already was facing the retirement of the police chief, human resources director and community programs director that year when the city's spokesman and assistant city manager both announced they had accepted other jobs.

Last year, city Fleet Services Director Wendell Jones retired in early summer and was replaced by Willie Hinton. In early fall, Housing and Neighborhood Programs Department Director Andre Bernard left and longtime city employee Victor Turner took over.

"I have already started the process for a national search for both positions and hoped to have both filled by the end of June," Moore said of the planning and parks roles.

Metro on 02/14/2017

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