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Parks maintenance subcommittee gathering ideas to offer to council

By Eli Segall

Last fall, at a joint study session of the San Jose parks and planning commissions, a new city parks maintenance subcommittee was formed. The group meets monthly to find new money for San Jose's struggling parks.

Because it is new, San Jose City Council members Madison Nguyen, Pete Constant and Judy Chirco, as well as Vice Mayor Dave Cortese, only recently learned of the subcommittee's existence.

They said they want to learn more, but their busy schedules do not allow them to know everything that goes on in City Hall.

The subcommittee will not approach the city council until it has concrete ideas and proposals, said Melanie Richardson, a parks commissioner who sits on the newly formed subcommittee.

"We were kind of in a listening and learning mode for awhile," Richardson said.

Two ideas being considered by the subcommittee include changing the construction and conveyance tax structure to increase its parks maintenance allocation, and introducing a bond measure or parcel tax. Both options, which were suggested by the parks commission last month, require voter approval.

The six-member subcommittee is made up of planning and parks commissioners and staffed by San Jose Parks Department officials. Council members Nancy Pyle, Sam Liccardo and Pierluigi Olivierio sent representatives to its recent meetings.

Oliverio's policy director, Denelle Fedor, said she learned of the subcommittee on May 8 when subcommittee chairman Jim Zito asked her to present Oliverio's proposal for privatized maintenance at the Municipal Rose Garden, which the council ultimately rejected on May 15.

Zito said he is planning a June study session to fill in the rest of the council on their work.

The subcommittee's goal is to identify "sustainable and dependable" supplemental funding for parks maintenance, said Zito, who is a San Jose planning commissioner.

"Parks seem to be one of the first things that get cut when there's problems with the general fund," he said. " Compared to schools, police and fire, I guess it seems like a luxury."

Parks maintenance is funded by the general fund and a portion of construction and conveyance tax dollars held by the parks department. Next year San Jose faces a $16 million general fund shortfall; the construction and conveyance fund, generated by real estate transactions, is expected to drop from $34 million to $27 million due to a dip in home sales. The lack of funds coupled with a staffing shortage has affected overall park maintenance. Since 1998, 23 parks maintenance workers have been eliminated due to budget cuts.

The commissioners realized at the joint study session last fall that with a possible increase in park ordinance fees, new parks would be built without adequate maintenance funds; thus, the subcommittee was born. The city council later approved the fee hike in October.