Nearly a year after the Naperville Park District’s last executive director left the post, commissioners have found a successor.
Next month the district will welcome Daniel Betts, who is currently deputy manager of recreation and facility services for the city of Denver. Park officials will make a formal announcement on Bett’s hiring at Thursday’s board meeting.
“Plans do call for him to start March 24, pending the approval of his contract Thursday,” park board President Kristen Jungles said Tuesday.
The district did not have a contract with former executive director Barbara Heller. Heller, who was an at-will employee, began working for the district in November 2004 and left in March 2007.
“He will have a contract that will show the commitment of the board … to him,” Jungles said.
Park commissioners on Tuesday declined comment on the new director, opting to wait until the formal announcement Thursday evening.
Last week the Rocky Mountain News reported Betts, who started working for Colorado’s capital city four years ago, turned in his resignation effective March 4. In the article he said becoming executive director of the Naperville Park District was a promotion, a great opportunity and a chance to return to the Chicago area, where he grew up.
“This has been a great experience all the way around,” he told the paper about his time in Denver.
A Web site profile said Betts graduated in 2001 from Western Illinois University, which he began attending in 1998. The profile described Betts as an education management consultant in addition to being Denver’s deputy director of parks and recreation.
In September Betts faced a firestorm of criticism from Denver City Council members over a proposal to reduce the hours that 12 of the city’s recreation centers were open to the public, the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News reported. The cutbacks were considered a cost-saving measure.
In 2005 Betts helped organize a youth basketball tournament and other events designed to highlight Denver’s diversity when the NBA All-Star Game was held in Colorado, the Post reported.
In April Betts was one of six finalists named for the director of recreation in Cincinnati, according to minutes of that city’s Public Recreation Commission.

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