Yes and Yes on park issues
Published 8:00 am Thursday, September 9, 2004
Bainbridge Island’s relationship with its park and recreation district is like an on-again, off-again romance. Community and parks are hopelessly entwined – just made for each other, their friends would say. Yet every few years, the community turns coy and fails a park levy. The parks respond by saying, “Come back soon, or we’re gone for good”; the prospect of cold, lonely days with nothing to do eventually sets in with the community, a new levy is passed, and the romance is back on for another two years.
Well, Bainbridge Island, it’s time to get hitched; you can take the park district to the altar by voting “Yes” for parks twice on the Sept. 14 primary ballot.
The first part of your vows – to have and to hold – commits the community to a one-year, $2.567 million maintenance and operations levy for 2005. Because the district will otherwise have no operating funds – voters spurned the last levy attempt in February – this measure must be approved to keep park facilities open and programs running. Don’t blow it.
The second – in sickness and in health – will finally put the stamp of long-term commitment on a relationship too long in limbo. Voters should embrace a proposal to change the Bainbridge Island Park and Recreation district to “metropolitan” tax status as prescribed under state law, allowing the district to establish a base property tax rate and get off the two-year, love-us-or-leave-us funding cycle.
The advantage: stability. Rather than having to come back to voters every two years for permission to stay open, the district would set a base tax levy (maximum: 75 cents per $1,000 valuation) to be collected each year. With more certainty in funding, district officials would finally be able to do long-term planning for park needs and financing. The district would still have the option of coming back to voters for supplemental funding for big capital projects or other needs, but such a measure would require a 60 percent supermajority for approval.
To be sure, voter fickleness has come with a cost: tens of thousands of dollars are spent every two years on repeated levy elections, a needless ritual that squanders money better spent on park programs. While some insist that short-term levies are a useful check on district finances, history shows that to be untrue; voters have invariably approved levy increases that far outpace the rate of growth permissible as a metropolitan district. In fact, metropolitan park tax revenues would be capped each year at 1 percent growth, plus the tax value of new construction (another 2-3 percent per annum, depending on development in a given year). Park commissioners and district officials should be praised for volunteering to put themselves under the 1 percent yoke; they are pledging fiscal discipline unprecedented in the district’s 40-year history.
Finally, we urge voters not to be misled by suggestions that the park district court City Hall for a possible merger. While well-meaning, the idea has no relevance to the ballot issue at hand. Our city has expressed no interest in taking over the island park system; it does not have the money to do so. The City Council has affirmed as much in its unanimous endorsement of the metropolitan park district proposal.
Islanders demand excellent parks and recreation; it’s time to quit toying with shutdowns of a system so overwhelmingly popular. Admit it, Bainbridge Island, you love your parks. Now quit fooling around and exchange your vows.
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In elections for the metropolitan park district board of commissioners, the Review heartily endorses all five incumbent park commissioners – Tom Swolgaard, Dave Shorett, Sarah “Sally” Mathews, Ken DeWitt and Kirk Robinson. The only contested candidate, Robinson has been an excellent voice on the current board and deserves re-election over John Wade.
