Make 2000 a Year for Parkland

Measures are moving quickly through the Legislature to put more than $20 billion in proposed bond issues before California voters to finance infrastructure projects ranging from new police crime laboratories to highway and transit work and water projects. All are worthy to some degree, but Gov. Gray Davis and legislative leaders will have to decide soon which will actually go on the ballot in 2000. There isn’t room for all. Having too many issues on the ballot might stretch the state’s debt limit or invite voter opposition. In terms of California’s needs, a parks bond issue rates near the top.

The biggest single item being considered is a transportation bond issue of $16 billion spread over four successive elections. It passed the Senate and is pending in the Assembly.

A bond measure that passed the Assembly with bipartisan support Monday, sponsored by Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Fred Keeley (D-Boulder Creek), includes $322 million for state parks and an especially welcome $704 million in grants to local government for urban parks, trails and recreation facilities. These, combined with other measures, would add up to $1.5 billion in park bonds on the November 2000 ballot. The Senate has three versions of a park bond issue.

Davis no doubt will approach all of the bonds with his usual fiscal caution. That’s good. But he should remember that it has been more than a decade since California passed a statewide park bond. Annual budget allocations for parks and recreation have been slashed and fees have risen.

The state has many urgent and competing needs. But help for parks and recreation has been delayed so many times in recent years that many state and local nature and recreation facilities are in crisis. California should make 2000 the year of the parks.