Panelists answered the following question: Do you believe it is a good idea for the county to have appointed “parks champions” promote a new parks tax?
Jim West: “Yes. ‘Champions’ and financial support for parks are always good ideas, but parks are a golden opportunity for City/County consolidation. My suggestion would be to start over with a single City/County Parks Commission and have all the recreation activities managed by the YMCA. Duplicity would end and costs would go down.”
Nants Foley: “I believe we should move forward with this. The Health Trust granted us this money to move forward with strategic efforts to enhance the health of San Benito County residents. Let’s spend it and hope that more people become aware of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle which includes having parks in which residents can walk and ride bikes safely.”
Marty Richman: “No. The county’s fiscal problem is the General Fund. They have $2.1 million in recreation impact fees they should use for capital improvements to the current parks to handle increased population demand. They should promote a 1 percent general sales tax in the unincorporated areas to fix the General Fund instead. Hollister is taxed out!”
Richard Place: “The reality of the county budget is that it really doesn’t have enough money to creat a new expense for taxpayers. If we are going to expand the sales tax it should be used for sheriff’s office, which is really understaffed. Use a little creativity to create recreation programs, like the DeAnza Trail, that Granite Rock has maintained for 15 years now at no expense to the public.”
Ruth Erickson: “With very slow recovering local and national economies, a new special tax would be a hard sell!”
Mary Zanger : “No. We elected our supervisors to represent us. If our supervisors are unsure about an issue they should engage their constituents. The elected officials must go out and talk to, listen to, canvass, engage, email, and phone constituents. Supervisors should not listen to paid lobbyists or decide on their own. Find their answers from the people they represent, not from paid consultants. This would be what real Democracy looks like!”
