Evanston’s Parks and Recreation Board held a short postmortem dialogue Thursday evening on its current request for extra funds to maintain up upkeep of the metropolis’s 88 parks — particularly the 11 so-known as “legacy parks” which can be in dire want of overhaul.
Board President Robert Bush formally made that ask at the City Council’s Sept. 18 assembly, when the Council first heard staff proposals for the 2024 Capital Improvement Program (CIP). Bush sarcastically stated of that assembly: “It was a lot of fun on Monday.”
Bush was one of a number of audio system interesting for the council to allocate cash to numerous tasks. City officers now should wade by means of requests totaling some $111 million. The Parks and Recreation Department is in search of about $20 million, with a lot of these {dollars} going towards new personnel.
Money for the division is tied up with the relaxation of the metropolis finances, a novel construction in contrast with different neighboring municipalities in Illinois. In most instances, a separate park district, which is commonly its personal line-merchandise on tax payments and can concern its personal bonds to lift funds, is accountable for operating park services.
Perceived knowledge amongst many in native governments has held that the fewer authorities companies, the higher. That idea led, for instance, to the dissolution of Evanston Township in 2014. The metropolis saved a whole lot of 1000’s by merging township places of work for property tax assessments, emergency providers and common help with metropolis administration.
But some board members stated Thursday they concern that parks may find yourself a monetary afterthought in the metropolis budgeting course of, particularly as Evanston focuses on lakefront enhancements. Deferred upkeep has already led to native parks requiring an ideal deal of backlogged work, in response to metropolis workers.
“I’m just hoping that the city understands something beyond, ‘Oh, we need to put money into our parks,’ and doesn’t just move on,” Bush defined.
“I’m just worried that we’re going to do all this work [for investment in park resources], and then the council is not going to see us,” added board member Ellie Shevick.
The board floated the idea of asking the metropolis to create a separate park district.
“We should have our own budget,” stated board member Jeff Totsch, who identified that Evanston had change into “an island” amongst its friends by designating parks and recreation as a metropolis division.
But members acknowledged that such a transition would require a referendum and difficult monetary planning to switch metropolis-owned sources to a brand new park district.
“The question is going to be, how much is going to be given to us and how much would we have to pay for?” Bush stated.
Board members agreed to analyze the matter additional in 2024.
Meanwhile, the board additionally heard a proposal to create a brand new associates program for varied teams that commonly meet in indoor park services. Groups who grew to become half of the program — some of which could pay diminished charges, or no charge in any respect, for the room utilization, depending on the group in query — must apply each three years. The course of, in response to Recreation Manager Matt Poole, would make sure that Parks and Recreation services “are distributed equitably.”
The Board will vote on the associates program at its October assembly.