It appears nothing will stop the political bulldozer driving a far-too-costly river parkway project.
In recent weeks, county officials approved spending $400,000 on a strip of parkland and also started the crucial environmental review process – set to last about a year – for the long-term project that is destined to eat up a vast majority of future parks funding.
The 20-mile river parkway proposal stretches from the Fourth Street Bridge to Hospital Road and includes a so-called regional park. After hosting public meetings and working with an advisory committee of 21 people, officials developed a master plan that calls for 17 primary features. Some of those features include a climbing wall, public swimming pool, BMX track, community center building, demonstration orchard, picnic pavilion, basketball courts, volleyball courts, nature trails an agrarian-themed playground and an outdoor amphitheater for 200 seated guests.
Moving forward on such an idealistic, novelty-centric plan at fiscally shaky times – remember, the initial price tag eclipses an entire annual general fund budget and doesn’t even include costs to maintain the facilities – has more to do with politics than it does with parks or logic. It makes absolutely no sense to support a lavish park project – which will cost upward of $40 million just to get it built – when the county is relatively dirt poor and faces a mountain of maintenance issues with current parks.
This is the same county that has laid off scores of employees in recent years and remains in the midst of tense union contract negotiations. And although parks funding comes from a different pot of money than employee compensation, the parks money is largely linked to the county’s pace of development and overall economic health. Neither of those factors inspires anywhere near a level of optimism that would seem necessary to put down a $40 million investment – with money the county doesn’t have – on a new mega-park.
Instead of taking the responsible approach and spreading around future park impact fee dollars while using the earmarked funds to fix some of the major problems at existing local facilities – such as Veterans Memorial Park, a community cornerstone with a bevy of maintenance problems – elected officials are listening to the politically connected minority. They are putting all the county’s eggs in one basket at the expense of the other parks – and at the expense of families using them.
