Support For City Parks

Presentation to Council 

A couple of rhetorical questions

I ask the city fathers if you consider the local hospitality industry as the Visitors Bureau’s primary client?

If so, do you agree that city parks have a significant revenue impact on
those clients?
If so, would it be a good idea for city council, as many councils do, to
divert a portion of the bed tax to the cash poor and deteriorating city park
system? Such an action would allow the parks to continue providing a venue
for city-wide revenue enhancement.

For example, if the ball diamonds continue to deteriorate it will be
difficult to recruit area and statewide weekend tournaments that produce
significant revenue for the local economy.

In this period of economic distress when all sectors of the city are
sacrificing, a mere 7% of the bureau’s budget would fix the diamonds for
this year and allow upkeep of the parks to continue in follow on years.

The parks are an integral part of the city’s quality of life, especially for
the young folks. We used to be proud of our parks and we should not let them
become an embarrassment.

We have a dedicated, capable and efficient parks staff working as hard as
they can under difficult budget constraints to keep the system operating.
Isn’t it time to give them the respect they deserve? We don’t want to lose
any of these people to an otherwise improving economy.
Please excuse me for bringing Winston Churchill into the presentation but
his quote concerning the RAF in WW II could apply in this situation. “Never
have so many owed so much to so few.”

I encourage current members of, and candidates for, city office to consider
this issue during the run up to the election.

Paul Hunter