For more than three years the city park across the street (Summer’s Walk) has not been watered. The developer spent lots of dollars laying out a plan and planting beautiful plants and trees. In the last three years we have lost more than 50 percent of those plants and trees. It’s been heartbreaking to watch the downgrade. I thought that a part of our taxes were to pay for upkeep of our parks. What’s going on?
— Sherrie Hendricks, Fisher’s Landing East
The short answer, Sherrie, is the city has pared spending down to “essential services,” and watering neighborhood parks such as Summer’s Walk — a 4.1-acre park deeded to the city by the developer in 1998 — isn’t considered essential.
Yes, you pay property taxes for city services. But 2001’s Initiative 747 capped annual property tax increases at 1 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, and now property taxes don’t support as many services as they used to. Parks are ranked behind fire, police and public works in terms of important city services. The fire department gets 25 cents of every $1 of city property tax revenue, the police department gets 24 cents and public works gets 15 cents. Those are the big three, and every other department fights for the leftovers.
Of every $1 dollar in property taxes the city takes in, 6 cents goes to parks and recreation. When the Vancouver City Council sought public input prior to the 2009-10 budget, which included citywide cuts, the residents who responded didn’t rate “watering neighborhood parks” a priority.
