3/26/16
Humboldt County should not consider the sale of public parks to offset the $250,000 budget gap it’s facing over the next five years. Other options must be found.
As we reported earlier this week, the county is staring down a parks crisis that can be traced back to a deadly accident on U.S. Highway 101 near Trinidad in 2013. After a county parks employee driving a county parks vehicle struck and killed a bicyclist, the insurance costs of the Parks Division of the Public Works Department have increased 15-fold: Between 2013 and 2015, they’ve skyrocketed from about $6,000 to about $91,800.
Insurance now consumes 42 percent of the Parks Division’s services and supplies budget; elevated rates will last five years, adding up to about $500,000.
Half of this has been accounted for through an insurance adjustment. Meanwhile, the Parks Division has coped with its ravaged budget by turning to volunteer and jail work crews to cover needed maintenance, delaying upgrades to vehicles and equipment upgrades, and halting maintenance of the Luffenholtz Beach access property.
But short-term deferrals aren’t going to dig the county of a $250,000 budget hole. Options now under discussion include:
• Discontinuing the temporary dam for summer swimming at Freshwater Park
• Charging day-use fees at Clam Beach and Mad River beaches
• Cutting bathroom maintenance services at Moonstone Beach
• Selling or relinquishing county parks such as A.W. Way County Park, Crab Park, Centerville Beach, Table Bluff County Park and others.
A quarter-million gap may be a quarter-million gap, but if those parks are sold to plug a shortterm problem, that’s just more money the county won’t have to get them back in the long term.
Selling off our county’s parks would be akin to pawning the crown jewels: Parks can boost local property values and grow local revenue. They can act as a draw for tourists, who bring in more revenue. They can serve as a staging grounds for recreational activities aplenty, which can help attract new businesses (revenue) and help with employee recruitment efforts (more revenue, still). The more healthy parks this county has, the more healthy its citizens will be — lest anyone forget, it’s harder for the unhealthy to contribute revenue.
Beyond revenue, this is a quality of life issue.
Parks are not only tourist attractions but play a vital role in community life, serving as accessible centers of recreation to a broad swath of Humboldt County residents.
We stand with Supervisors Estelle Fennell (“We have to figure out a better approach,”) and Mark Lovelace (“To permanently let go of a park to address a temporary issue is not something I am interested in at this point,”), who voiced their objection earlier this week to the notion of putting Humboldt County’s parks up for sale. As the Board of Supervisors drafts the county’s budget for the next fiscal year, your elected representatives should most definitely, as Lovelace put it, “look at more creative solutions.”
