San Mateo County seeks new funding source for parks
by Lennie Roberts

Supporters of County Parks were thrilled to see Item 9.2 on the agenda for the January 27 meeting of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors: "Resolution to amend the 2003-04 Legislative Session Program to include a legislative proposal regarding the creation of a countywide special park district"-- the result of 10 years of work by Committee for Green Foothills and many other parks supporters!

Biologist David Luth (on left) and Head Ranger Richardo Trejo discuss management of biodiversity at Edgewood Park and Preserve. Dwindling budgets for parks staff threaten ranger staffing and other critical resources.

Forming a park district is significant because it provides a dedicated source of funding for parks. San Mateo County is one of only two counties in the entire nine-county Bay Area without a dedicated source of funding for parks. To address this need, countywide parks districts have been formed by others, including San Diego, Santa Barbara, Napa, Marin, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Sacramento counties.

Lacking dedicated sources of funds, San Mateo County Parks have seen budget reductions of 32% over the past two years, and will undoubtedly suffer more cuts as the state cascades its budget crisis back onto local government. (We've just learned that Environmental Services is being asked to cut its overall budget by 12%; it's virtually certain that parks will suffer an additional hit.) The parks department has identified some $78 million in deferred or unfunded capital projects throughout the County Parks system, and it is operating the parks with $7 million annually, when a good level of service would require $11 million.

Chaired by Supervisors Jerry Hill and Mike Nevin, the County's committee investigating this problem determined that the most effective way to ensure funding for our parks is to create a countywide park district that could provide new sources of revenue for park agencies at both the city and county levels.

The proposed district would focus on traditional recreational uses (rather than the preservation of open space, like the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District) and would not replace city and county parks departments, but will have the ability to provide additional revenue as well as coordination of planning and services among all the park agencies.

There are still many details to be worked out by the County working in concert with city parks departments. The first step is authorization by the State Legislature, followed by approval of a countywide vote before the district would be created. The earliest that the district could be formed would be November 2005.

Until then, we can expect to see park closures at least seasonally, and only bare bones staffing, which is not a tenable situation for visitors or park resources. We're pleased to see that there might be an end in sight for this as San Mateo makes real progress towards funding of County Parks.