The Seattle Parks Foundation has released a report on the problems facing Seattle’s parks, in light of budget problems. The foundation is asking the public to take an online survey about finding stable funding for operations and maintenance of the park system.
The Parks Department lacks a sustainable source of ongoing operations and maintenance funding and faces an annual $25 million shortfall. This has led to a backlog of major maintenance projects in excess of $200 million, increased user fees, and reduced community center hours. Left unaddressed, the problem will only worsen over time
The survey asks questions about your family’s park usage, whether you have or would consider volunteering to help clean up parks or teach programs at community centers, and your opinion on several possible park maintenance funding options. It takes about 10 minutes to complete.
Many of us have seen a message from the Seattle Parks Foundation with a “survey” on parks financing that unfortunately is written to encourage premature endorsement of a number of “solutions” that would do real harm to our parks by removing them from the public’s control through unaccountable new entities. The survey refers to a seriously flawed report (at http://www.seattleparksfoundation.org/Sustaining_Parks.html).
While there are good things in the report (especially its analysis of the financial needs of our parks and how the Mayor and City Council have increasingly starved them of funds), its rosy picture of the parks under future special districts and privatization is a dangerous distraction from getting our Mayor and City Council to better protect parks in their budget decisions.
I suggest that the survey be avoided until the options are better analyzed in a revised report and more fairly described in a future survey. The report’s most serious flaw is its advocacy for a Seattle “Metropolitan Park District,” a state chartered entity that (like the ill-fated Monorail Authority) wouldn’t be bound by the Seattle City Charter, ordinances, regulations, City boards (including the Park Board), or any of the other protections for our parks that Seattle has built up over more than a century. I’ve put together an analysis of the report for Parks and Open Spaces Advocates that you can find at http://seattlefederation.blogspot.com (web site of the Seattle Community Council Federation). If you have trouble locating my analysis, would like it e-mailed directly to you, or have questions or suggestions, please contact me. Let’s all work toward a future for our parks that is financially secure but also does not undermine the public’s ability to access and protect them!
Chris Leman
cleman@oo.net or (206) 322-5463