Sacramento Running News

Grassroots Working Group representative Clyde McDonald explains the options to the County Board of Supervisors. (Photo by John Blue)

Tuesday evening, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted to keep their options open for possible funding of the regional parks system.

The Sacramento Bee reports:

The Board of Supervisors directed staff to draft state legislation to allow a November 2012 election for a 0.1 percent sales tax increase.

If approved by two-thirds of county voters, the tax would raise $17 million annually to support the county’s 32 regional parks, including the popular American River Parkway.

What they didn’t vote on was how the parks would be governed.

The Grassroots Working Group reports that their polling indicates support for a sales tax increase of 0.1% in support of a regional park system–if the parks will be managed by an independent park district. It seems that voters are distrustful of the county to use the money as it is supposed to be used.

The Supervisors also didn’t vote on whether they really would go ahead with the plan to put the issue on the ballot. The Supervisors simply directed staff to seek legislative approval to pursue the sales tax increase.

This needs to be done before the legislative session ends in September if the measure is to be ready for the November 2012 election.

Expect much more wrangling as the county seems to be resisting giving up the parks to an elected, independent district even while many people feel they seem overly eager to give up bits and pieces of the park system to individual operators.

If parks are important to you (i.e., you don’t like to do all your runs on a treadmill), you should probably be paying attention to this issue and let your supervisor know of your interest.