Would Cleveland voters raise property taxes to pay for city parks?
Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration is floating the idea of a new parks tax in a newly released master plan that recommends a levy for the city’s green spaces and recreation centers. The idea received a cold reception from City Council members on Monday.
The plan also suggests repurposing or closing Woodland and Alexander Hamilton recreation centers, as well as ending the city’s lease for Cory recreation center. It proposes building a new recreation center in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood.
A parks levy wouldn’t go to voters until 2028 under a timeline in the master plan, which was crafted with help from the consulting firm OLIN. That three-year window would give City Hall time to show that its newly created Department of Parks and Recreation is up to the job of taking care of the city’s recreational facilities.
“We’re not going to go out for a levy right away also because we don’t have a proven track record with the community yet to show that if they do approve a ballot issue for funding, that we have the wherewithal to deliver,” James DeRosa, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects, said in an interview last week.
Poor maintenance at parks and recreation centers is a common complaint from City Council and residents. Even so, council members at Monday’s Municipal Services and Properties Committee meeting pushed back on the idea of a tax.
Read: Executive summary of Cleveland’s new parks master plan
“You definitely caught me off guard with this levy,” said Council Member Anthony Hairston, who represents neighborhoods across the northeast side of the city.
Hairston said that, at the moment, he did not believe it was right to “tax the people of the city of Cleveland once again.” Instead, he said City Hall should seek more money for neighborhoods when it goes out for state grants.
The city budget slates $38.5 million this year for the parks department. The master plan recommends increasing parks spending to $54 million by 2032, including $10.5 million in capital dollars. A levy would create a new stream of income for that hike in spending.
A city parks levy would be different from the already existing Cuyahoga County-wide property tax for the Cleveland Metroparks, which is a separate parks system.
Other revenue sources mentioned in the plan include corporate sponsorships, naming rights and private donations.
A new plan for a system with 100+ city parks
Cleveland hosts — and must maintain — nearly 170 city parks, more than 100 playgrounds, 107 baseball diamonds, 66 tennis courts, 88 full basketball courts, 20 recreation centers, 39 swimming pools and other amenities, according to the city’s latest available financial statement.
The plan contains a wide set of recommendations for the new parks department, which the Bibb administration and City Council set up last year as a standalone city department. The levy was one of the more eye-catching ideas. Other points included improved safety, increased staffing and year-round programming. The No. 1 priority listed in the plan was maintenance.
In an interview, Parks and Recreation Director Alexandria Nichols rattled off a list of items in need of maintenance: park benches, trash cans, recreation center heating and cooling systems, elevators and bathroom stalls.
“We have to clean our house before we invite our friends over,” she said. “Part of demonstrating to the community that we understood what they said, we appreciate what they said and we’re going to change, we have to look at all of that deferred maintenance.”
How to ‘right-size the ship’ of city parks and recreation centers?
Nichols noted in last week’s interview that city’s the parks system was built for a larger population than Cleveland has now.
During Monday’s committee hearing, DeRosa said the mayor’s office and City Council would have to work together closely to “right-size the ship” while ensuring “high-quality and well-maintained” facilities. He said that past plans to close recreational amenities hadn’t become reality.
“We have a system with too many amenities for us to properly maintain, and it’s going to take some bold moves to move forward under the Bibb administration to figure out how to best provide the right amenities for our residents,” he told council members.
DeRosa added: “There’s no easy answer to this.”
Ward 9 Council Member Kevin Conwell cautioned the administration about closing Cory recreation center, which is in his Glenville neighborhood.
“You’ve got to go in and talk with the residents,” he said. “They’re my bosses and they’re your bosses also.”
An equity-based model for investment
The parks master plan also laid out a new way to rank parks for maintenance. Currently, Cleveland spends its money fixing up the “worst first,” officials said.
A new model would score parks across a range of factors, including citywide priorities and a metric called the “climate and economic justice screening tool.” The tool is a way to grade city census tracts by health, housing quality, pollution and other factors. Areas with a higher burden would receive a bump in priority.
Nichols, whom Bibb hired last fall to lead the new parks department, said that the city needed to rebuild trust with its residents. That entails expanding parks programs and listening to what Clevelanders have to say about parks and recreation, she said.
“I’ve had many conversations with people, whether it’s residents or friends groups,” she said. “There was a lack of trust in the ability to work with the city. There was a lack of trust in the ability of the city to meet the needs of the community.”
What do you think?
Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration is talking about asking Clevelanders to raise property taxes to pay for improvements of city parks and recreation centers. We want to hear from you.
