City Parks Measure Is Losing Its Slim Lead

Overshadowed by the too-close-to-call district attorney’s race, a major parks funding measure is hanging on by an almost equally thin thread after absentee ballots carved away most of its lead.

Support for Measure K, which would raise $776 million over 30 years to fix up decaying city parks, is less than one-tenth of a percentage point over the 50% mark, according to the latest tallies.

When the polls closed last week, Measure K was 6,271 votes ahead, with 51% in favor. By early this week, it was only 1,280 votes ahead, or 50.08%. The county registrar’s office still needs to count 10,000 absentee ballots and verify and count 57,000 provisional ballots for which voter registration could not at first be confirmed. It is not known how many of those uncounted ballots are from within the city.

Officials at the city’s Recreation and Parks Department are watching the numbers tensely. Hundreds of park projects from after-school child care to soccer fields are at stake.

“It is an extremely important measure and we’re so close,” said Steven Soboroff, president of the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission. “To do this again and try to get a similar measure passed would be such an incredible ordeal.”

Measure K needs a bare majority of the vote to pass. But because of statewide Proposition 218, which voters approved Nov. 5, future measures would need a two-thirds majority.

The city parks measure would cost the average homeowner $18.75 a year. Landlords of three-story office buildings would pay $161.42 annually.

The campaign for the city parks measure, the last issue listed on the ballot, took a back seat to the better-financed Los Angeles County parks proposal, which voters approved last week and which will help finance improvements at some of the bigger city parks.

After the election, the city measure’s close call was obscured by the tight race between Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and challenger John Lynch. As of Monday, Garcetti was ahead by 3,165 votes, with 50.07% of the vote.

The next batch of absentee ballots will be announced Friday.

Despite the dwindling lead for the parks measure, its supporters remain optimistic. “It’s close, but I still think it’s going to pass,” said Councilman Mike Hernandez, who spearheaded the drive for Measure K, saying it would save taxpayers money by keeping children in recreational programs instead of gangs and jails.

But anti-tax activists and homeowner groups fighting the initiative contend that it exploits a loophole to circumvent Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that requires two-thirds voter approval of any property tax increases, and that it unfairly burdens property owners for a problem affecting all residents.

Councilman Nate Holden, who opposed the measure, was not surprised that it has been losing ground. “I expected them to lose election day,” he said. “People are just opposed to paying new taxes.

“People on fixed incomes are not benefiting from this,” Holden said. “People will be dead and gone before these projects are completed, and their kids will be paying for it.”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Assn. also opposed the measure as a flat-rate parcel tax that benefits the public at large and not individual property owners.

According to the city’s project list, about $120 million would be used for 36 regional facilities, constructing gymnasiums and soccer stadiums, adding fences and lights and doing maintenance and landscaping at the Los Angeles Zoo, the Cabrillo Marine Museum and the Hansen Dam Recreation Area.

Without this money, a number of projects might wait for decades, said Ann Kerman, director of resource development for the parks department.

Those projects include an $11-million Children’s Discovery Center at the zoo, a $3-million performing arts center for youths in the Los Feliz area and a $2-million water play area in MacArthur Park Lake.

“We are waiting with great anticipation,” Kerman said. “We hope many of our questions are answered soon.”