As the saying goes, you can’t have everything in life. That apparently never crossed the mind of a hired consultant and county staff members who presented the exceedingly ambitious river parkway and regional park master plan to the county Board of Supervisors earlier this month.
That blueprint for a river parkway came with an estimated price tag of $37 to $40 million and included all the amenities and Fantasy Land options you could imagine to fill up the bill. The plan, based off suggestions gathered through community input since last year, apparently includes every suggestion made by residents interested in the parkway. Such primary features of the plan include an agrarian-themed playground, an outdoor amphitheater for 200 seated guests, a BMX track and a community center building with indoor recreation, a kitchen, a theater, and possibly administration offices.
Why not throw in a rollercoaster, television studio, biosphere, underground tunnel and zoo as well?
Supervisor Robert Rivas was right to pronounce the plan as wholly unrealistic. He pointed out what should be the obvious – the county can’t afford it, as the parkway would cost about 33 percent more than an entire, annual general fund budget. Any sort of discretionary spending in the multimillion-dollar range, in an economically deprived county struggling to pay its current bills and keep sheriff’s deputies on the streets, should be completely off the radar.
If the process is going to continue focusing on this reach-for-the-stars mentality, then more top-level officials should speak out against it and insist that the county’s time and resources are spent more wisely – on necessities, not a wish list.
A more logical approach – instead of starting with the laundry list of expensive features – would be to begin the process with an affordable budget and then decide which prioritized features would fit within that framework. Otherwise, we’ll end up with yet another vision that fails to produce results and fails to garner public support.
