For the city of Vancouver, the dilemma is flowering like a rhododendron in spring.
Vancouver has 83 city parks, which long have served to enhance and beautify neighborhoods in every nook of the region. While Esther Short Park might serve as the city’s front porch, laying out a welcome mat for visitors from near and far, neighborhood parks can perform the same function on a more intimate scale.
So it is that the depressing condition of Vancouver’s parks points out a hardship facing governments these days. As detailed in a recent Columbian article by Amy Fischer: “It’s been five years since the city slashed its maintenance staff in half as part of Great Recession budget cuts to preserve police and fire services. With just 15 workers left to care for the city’s 83 parks — not to mention hundreds of acres of other city property that includes cemeteries, trails and medians — irrigation systems were shut down. Plants and trees died off. Shrubs withered and weeds grew.” And that doesn’t even get into the dilapidated picnic tables and cracked concrete.
In other words, Vancouver’s parks are not reflective of the region’s traditional embrace of lush greenery and landscaping, and many residents are beginning to request that attention be given to the situation. “I recognize that the community and the city council would like our parks to look better. We all would,” City Manager Eric Holmes said. “It’s a tough issue. . . . It’s a matter of how do we get there, and we’re working on that.”
How, indeed? Identifying a problem typically is easier than solving it. For the 2015-16 budget cycle, 6 percent of the city’s $302 million budget is earmarked for parks and recreation, and there are other pressing items on the wish list — particularly roads. Vancouver’s transportation improvement plan, for example, contains $250 million in unfunded projects.