Aaron Perri begins new job with Dept. of Parks and Rec

The new leader of the Department of Parks and Recreation in South Bend started Monday.

Aaron Perri was appointed the head of the department after longtime director Phil St. Clair announced he would be retiring after 34 years with the city.

Perri was previously the Executive Director of Downtown South Bend, Inc.

ABC57 spoke with Perri about his plans for the department moving forward.

"Part of what I'm excited about is to try and take a lot of the organizations in South Bend that are working on these quality of life, quality of place type initiatives and figure out how we can better work together as a departments. We're all looking at our marketing channels, and we're all looking at our event planners looking for how we care for our facilities and grounds," said Perri.

Perri is the co-founder of the summer festival On The River which brought in thousands to the area during its eight year run.