A Plan for Parks
Green space is my favorite. I love it and want to connect it to each other to promote biodiversity in our little urban forest.
Here is the plan.
We invest small sums through the tree commission to plant trees in homes that volunteer their properties to connect between the parks within our borders and, hopefully, to neighboring towns that agree to connect biodiversity together.
Second, we invest in our parks to encourage native species growth and biodiversity, but we do so in a phased-in and affordable manner. Here are proposed phases that are open for compromise:
- Rogers Park – Year 1
- Memorial Park – Year 1
- 31st Street Pocket Park and connecting forest path - Year 1 or 2
- 37th Street Park - Year 2
- Richardson Park – Year 2
- Spring Park – Year 3 (larger investment)
This could be done for between $25-50k per year, which amounts to less than 1% of our City’s budget even at the high end.
A Plan for Arts
Art space – especially in an urban environment with the absence of big nature – is a gift we can give each other. It is a gift we can gave each other through our tax dollars to create spaces that are just better to walk in. I love art, whether it is on public or private property.
So I have a plan.
I want to create an arts commission that taps into our amazing artist community. I want that commission to, well, commission works of arts on public or private land. The caveat would be that the space has to hold significant public value as renovating blighted space or enhancing a major intersection.
This would cost between $10-20k a year, which also amounts to way less than 1% of our City’s budget even at the high end.
How do you pay for these two plans?
On their highest end, the combined total cost is $100,000, which is only 1.4% of our City budget. We can pay for it through prior funding that was earmarked for capital improvements to Public Works in prior years that will not be needed in FY20. We can also try and identify vacant positions that may not need to be backfilled.
These changes would pay for these plans, and might even leave some leftover change that we can apply to our quest to cut spending so we can lower your taxes.