(Yesterday, we ran a post from a supporter of Prop 1, the ballot measure that would replace the expiring Parks Levy to create funding for maintaining Seattle parks. Toni Long replied with this counterpoint, arguing against the measure. Ballots are due August 5th.)
Prop. 1 permanently establishes a Metropolitan Park District for Seattle. I worked for Seattle Parks in the 1980s and polled some of my former maintenance and planning colleagues (all retired within the past couple years). All recommend voting no, as does the League of Women Voters. There are many good organizations and individuals in favor of Prop. 1, which honestly I do not understand. Although I am usually a “good Democrat” and vote yes for these property tax measures, I will be voting NO.We all agree that Seattle Parks requires more money for the parks to be properly maintained, the issue is whether the MPD is the correct long-term solution. My major concerns are:
- This new District could only be dissolved or its actions reversed by its governing body (Seattle City Council) or a change in State law…not by local initiative. Thus, if it does not meet the public’s expectations in 4 years or 10 years, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to reverse.
- Currently, the public has an opportunity to approve how Seattle Parks plans to spend levy funds when it votes for them. If approved, Prop. 1 would shift that public voice to the City Council. Yes, we would have the opportunity when it comes time to re-elect City Council Members, but few of us are single-issue voters, so this is unlikely to happen.
- Current State law allows MPD’s to sell, commercialize and privatize park assets. Thus it could shift Parks’ assets for other uses.
- Prop. 2 includes an “interlocal agreement” that guarantees that the City would maintain its current general fund support for the Seattle Parks system for 6 years. After that, however, general fund support can be cut or eliminated without public input. I anticipate this will occur due to the constant pressure on general funds to be used for other purposes.
- Property taxes can be increased up to 75 cents per $1,000 of valuation without a public vote. The Voters’ Pamphlet states that to be “$.0.33 per thousand dollars of assessed value or $145 per year for an average home with a value of $440,000. As a separate taxing authority from the City of Seattle, the District could levy additional property tax above the current “lid” restrictions that state law imposes on Seattle.” I anticipate general funds directed at Seattle Parks to decrease over time and MPD taxes to increase. It’s just my prediction.
We all agree that Parks maintenance funds need to be increased. I would like more work to be done to develop a solution that includes more accountability for decisions about how funds will be spent beyond the first 6 years and how funds will be increased in the future — a solution that keeps the public empowered to participate in these decisions.
Clearly, we won’t all agree, but I thought I would share my thoughts. Read your Voters’ Pamphlet carefully.
(Photo by Michael Martin)
Come on folks, can we take a leap of faith here that our elected officials and the new Citizen’s Oversight Panel will do the right thing? I can. We NEED this funding! Honestly, the new District Elections will both make passing a levy MORE difficult in the future as neighborhood leaders fight to “bring home the bacon” and EASIER for you to replace your Councilmember/Parks District member.
Leap of faith in our elected officials? Not me, baby!
Besides, when in living memory have Seattle voters ever rejected a parks levy?
As a general rule, it seems to me that we do need to trust our elected officials or elect new ones; in the case of the current city council, plan B has taken out Conlin, but there’s a lot left to be done.
The post Reagan conservatives should love this one, though. It takes care of a visible bleeding sore at relatively little expense, while they can still starve transit and human services while singing their “tax and spend” fight song.
Although I am usually a “good Democrat” and vote yes for these property tax measures, I will be voting no.
LOL!! Good job, that’s Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over Taxaholism – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Although this is a “Democrats” counterpoint, it’s hardly a “Counterpoint”.
Steve
If these guys were at all trustworthy, they wouldn’t have come up with a scheme like this in the first place.
Thanks for posting this. I’d been researching how to vote on this, and this was a significant help. (The League of Women Voters recommending “No” is a particular red light, to me at least.)
I voted yes after some thought. One reason is the current levy system is not working well. The last levy was a mess with no maintenance dollars and some stupid projects, and once a levy is passed there’s no flexibility to use funds differently. This new system allows for more flexibility year to year, and with district elections I trust the oversight to work.
I just got a robocall from “Parks for All” stating basically that everyone opposed to Prop One simply does not want to pay for our parks. Wow! As one who has donated an insane amount of time in support of our parks, I find the choice to run such a campaign repugnant. Take a moment to consider the following:
– Parks for All has ten times the amount of money as what they have termed the “well-funded opponents”. Where did the proponent money come from? Approx 20% from the Zoo ($14,000 in the last 4 days), 10% from the Aquarium, 20% from the Parks Foundation (including my money as a foundation, which I object to), approx. 15% from builders, landscape architecture design firms, real estate developers. Follow the money.
– Those contributing to the opposition consist primarily of well-respected longtime parks advocates who have invested thousands of hours of their free time volunteering and organizing community projects at their local parks. This is hardly a group who would object without good reason to more money for parks. The Parks For All slander campaign against these people, such as the robocall I received, is reason enough for me to vote NO.
– Understand that the Zoo stands to get $3 million a year out of the pot. This is the same Zoo that recently stated that they are not a public entity and are not subject to public disclosure laws or public oversight on how they spend their money.
– Understand that City Hall and City Council are primarily interested in getting Parks OFF the levy cycle in order to free up funds for other projects. Is this bad? Not necessarily, but understand that the “Parks For All” campaign claims of a “minor increase” in what the average household will pay is deceptive because the levy cap vacated by moving parks funding to the MPD will surely be replaced by some other pet project. The money for the MPD will be IN ADDITION to what is spent via levies.
– Prop One COULD have been written to retain public input and allow the public to fix it if/when it turns out to be a poorly thought out monster. It was not. Why? Why the insistence on removing park user input from the process? Why make the MPD immune to any type of restructuring?
– Putting this issue on the ballot in the summer, when turnout will be low, allows a well-funded, strong-arm campaign, such as “Parks For All”, an exaggerated influence to ramrod the MPD through by essentially buying the vote. Cutting hours for high-profile needs such as wading pools and community centers before an election is similar to the approach taken by King County to influence voters.
– Proponents state that if we do not like how the Council is running the MPD, we can simply vote them out of office. Seattle residents are seldom one issue voters. How many reps were voted out of office when the council voted against public opinion on the monorail, the stadiums, the tunnel? It is not prudent to expect to influence MPD decisions via a threat to vote someone off the Council.
Proposition One and the “Parks For All” campaign simply smells funny. The campaign is manipulative and stacked with half-truths. These are some of the same folks that refused to include a maintenance component in the Parks For All levy from the 1990’s (no relation to the propaganda campaign currently calling themselves “Parks For All”, which begs the question about why the same name).
Please be careful with your vote. The way Proposition One is structured, the decision is irreversible. Ask yourself why the half-truths and deceptive advertising are deemed necessary by the proponents? Why are longtime park advocates so dubious of Prop One? Follow the money. Do not succumb to threats that parks will receive no other funding, a levy can be passed while the MPD is refined. An MPD truly COULD be set up to retain public access to the process by park users, the actual clients of Seattle Parks (not developers or the well-connected who will profit from control of the funds), but Proposition One DOES NOT DO THIS.
Thank you, Toni, for a cogent analysis. I have always supported parks but voted NO. Geov Parish has a good analysis as well: “City of Seattle Proposition 1 (Metropolitan Parks Dist.): Billed as a replacement for a parks levy, this measure has the support of every elected official in Seattle history, even the dead ones. It avoids the I-747 Eyman lid on funding by creating an independent parks district, with the same boundaries as the city of Seattle and run by city council members. In this way the new Metropolitan Praks District (MPD) can raise the money it needs to address a serious backlog of maintenance and parks development.
There’s no question that after a decade-long orgy of capital and general fund spending for South Lake Union, streetcar trolleys, and other developer welfare, the city has serious problems with not only parks, but any number of other infrastructure-y things it should have been funding instead. It’s been a long-time council strategy to go for money the public supports spending – parks, libraries, education, and so on – in levies, while less popular stuff gets slipped into the less visible general fund budget. So the city’s parks really do need this money. But this is a long-term solution – and a really bad one – for a short-term problem.
For years, after SPD, the city’s Parks Department has been the most controversial of the city’s departments, owing largely to the city’s attempts to extract as much money as possible from its parks through user fees, corporate use, and privatiation schemes. Some of those plans have actually been stopped, as with the ill-farted attempt to turn GasWorks Park over to a concert promoter for the summer a few years ago. But good luck doing that when Parks has the same arrogant staff but is answerable not to the mayor, but strictly to city council members who will never, ever lose their seats over what an “independent” parks district does. With its own separate taxing authority, it’s a setup for corruption similar to the Port of Seattle, only without the accountability.
What can the new MPD do? Campaign literature shows all the shiny new projects proponents say it will fund, but those aren’t part of this measure – only this structure, which cannot be repealed in the future by voters, is up for a decision. Afterwards, the MPD, which can raise property taxes in the city by up to 75 cents per $1,000 of valuation without a vote (that’s about $300 a year for a $400,000 property), can fund whatever it likes. In the future, under state law, it can also privatize or sell off parks, go into the convention center business (why not? The Port of Seattle did), or whatever else it likes. Good luck trying to stop any of it.
Essentially, this is a new, big pot of money for The Usual Suspects to raid, from a parks system that has a dubious recent history and all sorts of valuable real estate. If that seems cynical, remember that everything – everything in Seattle poliics right now is being driven by developers and real estate.This is no exception. Seattle’s Parks need better, more stable funding – but though a far more accountable mechanism than this. [Vote] No. “