By Dave Harrington
Whine is the right word for your Feb. 26 editorial on the closing of County Parks. I fail to see the problem with park users packing out the garbage that they pack in when they visit a park; national, state or county, wherever such care is required.
I fail to see the unfairness of charging the actual users of parks for their use. In fact just the opposite: I think it reasonable that parks include a modest use fee perhaps even with a provision to “work” the fee off by doing maintenance work within the park. Washington State Parks instituted such a fee a few years ago. It was modest and could be paid per day or per month or per year, but it was dropped after a year or two, due to the constant whining supported by the constant and standard “too expensive to administer” bovine skat.
Further, I see no rational argument in favor of not supporting user fees to support any program from Island Transit to parks. Please don’t bore me with the argument that Island Transit users pay for their use of the system through the sales taxes that they pay. If Island Transit had to rely on the total dollars paid by system users only they would be handing out skate boards.
As to your support for the stated reasons for county park closures, I put forth the following:
Revenues in the county and elsewhere are going down due to economic climate. And revenues are going to continue on that path into the foreseeable future.
Island County has lost approximately one business plus per month for the last 12 to 18 months, so unemployment is high and it is unlikely to get better soon.
If the current “half time” maintenance person cannot get the job done – working “half time” – and I don’t mean to sound insensitive here – perhaps here is another worker who would work one-quarter to full time and be willing to get the job done. Or perhaps the current person would be willing to expand his or her hours under the current salary.
Simply stated the taxpaying constituency is over burdened with “taxes” and “fees.” We have been “touched” with four rate, fee and/or tax increases in the last year. All of our “tax” and “fee” supported entities need to do the same thing that we “tax” and “fee” payers have had to do and that is — cut expenditures!
• Do not spend money you do not have.
• Cut out any unnecessary expenses, defined as those not core to your survival. If at the county level that means closing a few parks, maintenance for many of which have already been picked up by volunteer organizations, or cutting out non-essential positions, or even economizing salary levels (including the commissioners) and continuing to scrub the budget until it works for core services, then so be it!
The voters resounding refusal to support Proposition 1 certainly didn’t stop the commissioners from establishing, by decree, a few “fee” supported water utility which will employ three to six new county personnel, while simultaneously freeing up $300,000 or more in the general fund. Perhaps the commissioners could use that new “found” money from the “fee” based utility together with a reduction in their salaries to hire another “part-time” park maintenance person, or even retain a core employee or service in some other department.
Cutting lavish spending habits and reducing bloated budgets does hurt. My experience and observations over time have proved well enough to me that there is not a revenue problem at any level of our government, ever — there is simply a spending problem. That, and an unwillingness for bureaucrats to plan appropriately for required budget outlay into the future.
As to our parks: As past president of the Whidbey Island Trails Council, I am absolutely confident that many more folks will step forward to help with anything that is needed.
Dave Harrington lives in Oak Harbor.
