March 29, 2007
Parks levy video
Watch the video in Real Networks format or in Windows Media. Text transcipt below.
Narrator says:
King County owns and manages more than 180 parks, 25-thousand acres of open space and 175 miles of trails, making it one of the largest parks systems in the country.
Today the Parks Futures Task Force, a group of King County citizens who started looking at budget options for the parks system last November, released its final report and is recommending two property tax levies be presented to voters later this year.
The task force report strongly supports not only renewing a King County Parks levy that expires at year’s end, but restoring maintenance levels and investing in important open space and trails.
Task force member Louise Miller says:
One of the things that we found when we looked at the ability of the county to step in with other resources is they just aren’t there. We continue to evolve into the county being the caretaker for the rural area resource lands and the regional trails, and that’s part of what everybody wants us to keep doing. So it’s important that we have the money to maintain and do some projects for these resources.
Narrator says:
The two separate levies would cost the average homeowner about 20 dollars each annually. The first levy would fund operations and bolster maintenance; the second would fund efforts to preserve open space, connect trails and create new recreational opportunities.
Executive Sims says:
People want us to take care of what we have and that is very clear in all the surveys we have taken, all the meeting we have had and outreach that was undertaken in this effort. The task force is calling for investments in maintenance improvements, and important open space conservation projects that will help ensure King County’s long term commitments to preserving the regions environmental health, and particularly its water quality. The task force understood the importance that our parks system plays insuring the high quality of life that we enjoy in King County and I could not agree more. Yet while several rounds of serious belt tightening have put the worst of the budget crisis behind us, the fiscal solvency of the system remains precarious. Given this reality the task force has recommended two modest property tax levy’s for the August ballot.
Narrator says:
Executive Sims is following the task force recommendations in passing the levy’s along to the county council, although he is reducing the cost of one of the levy’s to tax payers because there may be other sources of funding available.
Executive Sims says:
The first will renew the parks operating levy, the existing levy set to expire at the end of this year. It will restore maintenance levels and park infrastructure to 2002 pre-budget crisis levels. The task force recommended the six year renewal be set at 7 cents per year on assessed valuation. Two cents was to replace projected loss of revenue due to slow down in real estate transaction and annexations. I have made a commitment to fund this two cents in future budgets through efficiency and innovation instead. Therefore I am able to reduce the recommendation to a five cent levy based on the latest property tax model and year to year forecast. I am confident a five cent renewal will meet the same goals.
Narrator says:
County Council members on hand promised to act quickly on the task force recommendations.
Councilman Dow Constantine says:
The second levy, expanding parks and recreation opportunities will allow us to provide for many of the things that we value, not only recreational opportunities for King County’s growing population, but also especially to protect water quality. We are able to acquire the lands that protect aquifers, protect our creeks and rivers and ultimately that provide for the quality of Puget Sound. And of course this is a benefit to people, because we need the drinking water for our growing population, it’s also a benefit to our wildlife and fish, the salmon in which we are investing so much effort and money trying to turn them back from the brink of extinction. You know they’re not making any more of this land, and folks are not going to stop coming to King County. So it’s incumbent on this generation to step up and make sure we secure the irreplaceable resources that will make this as good a place to live in the future as it has been for us.
Councilman Bob Ferguson says:
These regional facilities are critical for kids and adults to make our way of life so positive in King County and make King County so great. Just from a procedural level what will happen is this proposal will be coming to the council, I’ll be working with councilmember Phillips and councilmember Constantine and my colleagues’ as we move this through our appropriate committee’s we will want to move quickly, carefully but quickly to move this through so it can put on the ballot in August, have a public dialogue before the ballot proposal goes forward and have time for the public to debate the issue as it goes on the ballot. We’re committed to doing that and very excited to be here.
Narrator says:
The last levy to keep parks open was approved by voters in 2003 and will expire at the end of this year.