This week, the Redmond Reporter delves into Proposition 2, which will be on the Aug. 4 ballot. Last week, the Reporter examined Proposition 1, which is also on the upcoming ballot.
Redmond voters have been given the opportunity to voice whether or not they support additional maintenance and capital projects within the city’s parks system.
Proposition 2 — a six-year, $6.9 million levy — is on Tuesday’s ballot and if passed, will pay for a number of things.
Craig Larsen, parks and recreation director for the City of Redmond, said the levy can be divided into two types of costs: capital and operational.
IMPROVING NEIGHBORHOOD PARKS
On the capital side of things, he said funds from the levy would go toward investing in three neighborhood parks — Southeast Redmond, Westside and Northeast Redmond parks.
With Southeast Redmond Park, Larsen said the levy would fund a planning process with the community as well as a “phase one” of development for the park, which does not have much to offer at the moment.
“It’s basically flat grass,” he said.
Larsen said they would like to enhance the park for casual recreation, but they don’t have any specifics in mind at the moment as those would come up during the planning process with the community and depend on what people would want. But one thing is for sure.
“It’ll start to look like a park,” Larsen said.
Proposition 2 would also pay for the completion of the master plan for Westside Park. Larsen said the plan was started at the same time as the plan for Spiritbrook Neighborhood Park, whose renovations were completed in June 2012.
Westside Park is an older park and some of the work Larsen said that needs to be done include a new picnic pavilion as well as renovating the sports courts.
With Smith Woods, he said the levy would fund an expansion of the park’s current master plan. Some of the focuses of the plan would be to provide better access for the neighborhood, safe access to the stream and pond on the property and picnic areas for park visitors.
Larsen said the cost of these three projects would be $2.4 million.
IMPROVEMENTS AROUND THE SYSTEM
Another capital project that is part of the levy is investing in Idylwood Beach Park — mainly the parking lot.
Larsen said the park was built in 1977 and sees about 42,000 visitors during the summer. He said when it was designed, the parking lot was not well laid out and is not adequate to handle the heavy traffic — people will even park on West Lake Sammamish Parkway when the lots are full. The goal of redoing the parking lot is not to increase people visiting the park, but to make things more functional and safer for everyone.
One more project at Idylwood would be redoing the park’s bathroom and concession area.
If Proposition 2 passes, all of this work at Idylwood would cost about $1.1 million.
While Idylwood and the three neighborhood parks are the main items on the capital list, Larsen said the levy would also pay for various smaller projects throughout the parks system. One example of a project, he said, would be rebuilding the picnic shelter at Grass Lawn Park as he is becoming concerned about the wooden support beams, which are starting to rot.
“It’s a thing we’re going to have to replace in the near future,” Larsen said.
There are also repairs and resurfacing to be done in the equestrian arenas at Farrel-McWhirter Farm Park.
Larsen said there is a long list things that need to get done around the parks and the levy helps them address more items.
“This is a way to catch up on funding some of those (projects),” Larsen said.
REPLENISHING AN EXPIRED LEVY
On the operational side, Larsen said Proposition 2 would help them continue some of the teen programing as well as projects within the city’s forestry program.
Larsen said these were covered by the levy that was passed in 2007, but Larsen said that levy is expiring.
In addition, state law only allows cities to increase how much they tax residents by 1 percent per year. With the rising cost of materials, health benefits for employees and inflation, Larsen said the city has not been able to keep up and that gap continues to grow. Proposition 2 will help close the gap, he added.
WHY AREN’T THESE IN THE BUDGET?
And while Proposition 2 promises improvements to the city’s parks systems, not everyone is a proponent.
In a letter to the Redmond Reporter, former Mayor Rosemarie Ives asked, “And how can the city leaders find a total of $36.5 million for a downtown park but cannot find the $2.4 million they are now asking us for to develop two small neighborhood parks on land that was purchased more than nine years ago when I was in office and to update longtime Westside Park?”
In response to this inquiry, Larsen explained that when developing the city’s budget, staff goes over everything on a finite level, but there are some things that are needed that there is no money for. He said the items that make it into the budget are the top priorities and the items on the levy are the next tier down from that.
“If you want to accomplish more things, you ask the voters,” he said.
Redmond resident Aaron Knopf agreed.
“As a volunteer member (and current vice chairman) of the Redmond Parks and Trails Commission, I have gained a firsthand view of the fiscal prudence of the city government,” he wrote in a letter to the Redmond Reporter last week. “I have seen the list of important park projects that cannot move forward based on lack of available funding to provide public recreational space to underserved areas of the community.”
Knopf, who said he has already voted “yes” on both propositions, added that passing Proposition 2 will help move these projects forward and fund important maintenance programs.
