Moorpark Chamber Urges City to Limit Cuts to Parks

As city officials hunt for ways to make up an anticipated $606,000 shortfall, Chamber of Commerce members are insisting that officials limit their cuts to the city’s parks.

Officials, however, are reluctant to do so because they say closing some or all of the city’s 14 parks would hurt businesses and residents.

The shortfall for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, comes after voters rejected Measure P last year.

That initiative would have increased taxes for park maintenance in a special district.

But under a new state law, the measure’s failure eliminated the district.

That means Moorpark residents won’t be paying any tax designated for park maintenance after July.

The chamber, which supported the measure, contends the cuts should come only from the parks and recreation district--not from other city operations.

“If the public has voted and has voted not to sustain the maintenance of the parks, then don’t sustain the maintenance,” said Lori McGee, a chamber member and vice president of an insurance company in Thousand Oaks. “The measure they voted on was not for these other items.”

Council members have been studying a list of prospective cuts in the general fund. While they have listed the possible closure of three of the city’s smaller parks, most of the savings offered would come from reductions in other areas.

Politically, it would be difficult to close parks to make up the shortfall in maintenance money, said Al Schwartz, a chamber member and Moorpark veterinarian.

Yet such an action might be what it takes for people to support a tax hike in the future, he said.

“You don’t know how good you have it until you no longer have it,” he said.

A number of council members acknowledged that more effort should be focused on finding cuts in the parks and recreation district. But the majority said they are unwilling to restrict cuts to that area.

Doing so could close the parks--and reopening rundown parks would be costlier than continuing some level of maintenance, Mayor Patrick Hunter said.

“For you to fence or close those parks and do anything detrimental to those parks is somewhat myopic,” Hunter said. Closed parks would be bad for business, council members said, adding that prospective home buyers could see dead grass and locked fences as a blight, and focus their search on other cities.

“Would you buy a house in a community that had no parks?” Councilman Chris Evans asked.

Evans said he was confident that “economies” could be found within the budgets and “some revenue generators can be brought in to offset the additional expenses.”

Councilwoman Debbie Teasley said the council should look first at making cuts in parks and recreation.

The council must decide on the issue before adopting a new budget in May or June.

The prospect of raising taxes hasn’t yet been discussed at a council meeting.

But in a memo to the council, City Manager Steve Kueny mentioned creating a business license tax and increasing general parcel taxes as possibilities.

Hunter, however, has said he will not consider those as options.