 |
  |
 |
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||
SPORTS
VS. NATURE Most people in Eugene use city parks for walking and bird watching more than playing baseball or soccer, according to a city survey this year. Most want the city to balance parks between natural areas and developed sports fields. But that's not what the city is doing, say a growing number of critics. The city plans to spend more than 80 percent of the 1998 $25 million parks and open space bond on sports and other active recreation development rather than natural areas. "It's been hijacked," says Tom Pringle, of the bond measure. "I didn't vote for this." Instead of natural areas, the city is developing "billiard-table" fields, with closely cropped, chemically intensive turf devoid of wildflowers and cover for animals, he says. "It's green asphalt." The sports vs. nature war in city parks has reached a pitched battle over Amazon Park, where 120 people packed a city meeting last month. Sports advocates say they need more fields to serve thousands of players, and city officials say they're following directions established by a city parks committee six years ago. But natural parks proponents oppose city plans to develop new ball fields in an Amazon park wetland and have raised big questions about what people want out of their parks and how the city has decided to spend millions of dollars in public money.
THE PEOPLE'S PARKS? To bolster their case, natural parks proponents point to a scientific survey the city did in February that shows a large majority of people favor natural parks. Survey respondents said providing opportunities to enjoy nature or the outdoors was the most important benefit of parks (32 percent). Protecting the environment came in third (14.2 percent), while sports didn't make the top nine list of benefits, and presumably fell in number 10, "other" (1 percent). Outdoor/environmental programs ranked second in the top choices for parks programs people would most like to see increased. Sports came in fourth. When asked what is the right proportion of parks for Eugene, 52 percent favored an equal distribution of natural and active/sports parks. When asked what outdoor recreation elements are most needed in Eugene, respondents rated trails for biking and walking first (27 percent) and river access second (14 percent). Sports fields didn't make it into the top eight responses and presumably fell in the "other" (3 percent) category. The survey also asked what kinds of activities people engaged in. Walking for pleasure ranked first for highest participation, bicycling ninth, wildlife watching 11th, hiking 13th and bird watching 15th. Organized sports ranked far lower with soccer 29th, baseball 34th, and softball 35th. The survey then asked what kinds of activities people would like to do more often if the facilities were available. Bicycling ranked first followed by walking for pleasure. Basketball ranked 19th and other organized sports didn't make the top 20 responses. "That survey is quite telling," says Mary O'Brien of Citizens for Public Accountability. "There's this impression there is this huge need for ball parks but that's hardly what the community wants." But Randy Rogers, sports director for Emerald Kidsports, a local non-profit group that serves 20,000 local kids with a budget of $1.6 million, says ball fields are in great demand. He questions whether the city survey captured the opinions of the many kids that need fields to play on. The scientific survey, with a 5 percent margin of error, did include kids aged 10 to 18. The survey indicated that kids may want natural areas even more than adults. While 32 percent of the adults surveyed rated providing opportunities to enjoy nature or the outdoors as the most important benefit of parks, 42 percent of the kids did. Walking and cycling made the top 10 list for youth's favorite park activities, unlike organized sports.
A separate, non-scientific city survey involved 647 local high school and middle school kids who chose to fill out parks surveys. In that survey, organized sports were given higher rankings. Kids said basketball (ranked 5th), soccer (14th) and football (15th) were among the activities they most frequently engaged in. They said they wanted more basketball (1st), football (7th) and soccer (17th). But natural parks activities like biking (2nd) and hiking (16th) also ranked high. In another non-scientific survey, 400 people who filled
out questionnaires at the Eugene Celebration strongly favored natural
parks over ball fields. Almost three-quarters of respondents said they
wanted parks balanced more toward natural
SPORTS BOOSTERS Andrea Riner, the city's parks planning manager, agrees "there's absolutely a high priority that the citizens give to natural areas and passive recreation." But she argues the city "absolutely" already adequately meets that demand with the many acres of natural parks along the ridgeline trail, at Spencer Butte and Delta Ponds and in the West Eugene Wetlands property owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management. "There're 140,000 people that want 140,000 different things," Riner says. Citizens should realize, "maybe I don't get to have what I want at park X, but within the parks and open space system there's something for everyone." Riner questions whether the "balance" citizens call for in the surveys between sports and nature parks means that city funding for the competing needs should be more equal. "Is balance 50-50?" Riner says in deciding how to spend public money, parks staff are following the direction of the 1988 Mayor's Parks and Open Space Committee which recommended the $25 million bond measure. "It's a pretty good indicator of the balance this community has asked for." The committee recommended more than 80 percent of the $25 million should be spent on sports and other active recreation rather than natural areas. The city has spent $19 million of the money so far. But natural area proponents point out the committee recommendations weren't what citizens overwhelmingly passed in 1998. The question on the ballot asked only whether the city should issue the bonds "to purchase parkland, build parks and youth sports fields and replace Amazon Pool" and didn't go into details. In fact, the city has spent money from the measure on sports facilities never even recommended by the committee. About $1.7 million went to help local high schools build four new football stadiums with artificial turf, for example. The 1998 committee's recommendations for spending the money were sent out in a flier received by about a third of city residents before the vote. But the flier noted that the spending allocations were recommendations only and "fund allocations, land acquisitions, locations, and improvements may change based on a public review process." Members of the 1998 committee were appointed by Mayor Jim Torrey, himself a long-time former Kidsports coach, and natural parks proponents say the committee was heavily biased towards sports over natural areas. "It was a really ball field-oriented group of people," says Marcy Cauthorn of Citizens for a Natural Amazon. While the 1998 vote may not be a good measure of how citizens prioritize natural versus sports parks, a 1992 vote dealt more directly with the issue. In a countywide initiative, citizens voted by a wide margin to dedicate East Alton Baker Park as a natural area rather than building a golf course or soccer field complex.
BALL FIELD BIAS Natural parks proponents acknowledge that the ridgeline parks and wetlands are valuable natural areas but say people also need neighborhood natural areas close to their homes. Preschoolers and the city's growing elderly population could better take advantage of neighborhood parks, says O'Brien. "Must they always get in a car and go hike on steep slopes?" As the city becomes more developed, such nearby natural areas will become even more scarce and valuable, O'Brien says. "It becomes a real asset for a community when they set aside and make room for natural areas in a city in a central location," she says. "How many people would be going to Central Park in New York City if it was just all ball fields?" But sports boosters appear to have the city's ear on parks. Organized sports are by definition organized and as such are better able to lobby the city than large numbers of individual walkers, bikers, hikers and bird watchers, say natural parks advocates. Sports groups have shown up in force to city meetings to advocate for more ball fields instead of natural areas. Kidsports has a close relationship with the city, even scheduling playtimes among sports groups competing for fields. Cauthorn says she's had little traction with city staff, even after pointing to their own surveys showing that people want more natural parks. "There's a very definite bias towards a certain kind of ability group people," she says. "The balance has been towards people that are in organized sports." Cauthorn says city staff have called sports advocates to make sure they show up at public meetings to press for their fields. She says no similar get out the testimony calls have been made to natural parks advocates. While natural parks advocates complain of staff bias for sports, Rogers of Kidsports is happy with city decisions. "I have to really applaud the people we have in the city," he says. The city should keep the interests of the general public ahead of organized special interests, Cauthorn says. "Not everybody recreates with balls," she says. "What's the greatest good for the community?"
PARKS PROCESS The process for how the city decides to spend park money is dominated by city staff and isn't open or democratic, natural parks advocates complain. "Whatever staff thinks is best, that's what we'll get," Cauthorn says. Pringle notes that there was no public process or citizen input in the staff decision to install hundreds of new ball field lights in the northern section of Amazon park and in the decision to build two skate hockey rinks with small bleachers. While staff decided on their own to spend more than $100,000 on the sports lights, they have told citizens at meetings that natural amenities must compete among themselves and other ball field projects in a strict budget of what can be spent in the southern part of the park. "Where was the public input on those lights?" Pringle complains. "The public process is flawed." In meetings with city officials, natural parks advocates were told by staff, "We'll make the decision. If you don't like it, then go to the City Council," O'Brien says. "That's not a good attitude." "Not all projects are put on for public discussion," Riner says. For example, she says staff will decide for themselves how to spend the $1.2 million in interest that the bond measure produced beyond the initial $25 million plan the 1998 parks committee recommended. City staff held an open workshop last month ostensibly to gather input on how to spend $550,000 in bond money on Amazon park improvements. "Nothing is a done deal at this point, so we're here to hear from you," parks planner Carolyn Weiss told the 120 people who attended. But Riner said the decision on how the city will spend at least $350,000 of the money was already made by staff based on the broad recommendations of the 1998 committee. "This particular project is about providing an additional ball field," Riner said in an interview. O'Brien says it's been too difficult for citizens to get information on how the city is spending taxpayer money on park creation and maintenance and for whom. "They don't have an accounting of what you get for the money you spend and how many people does it serve," O'Brien says. "It's simply not transparent." O'Brien says she suspects "the reality is organized sports suck up a whole lot of money to serve very few people."
ANOTHER BOND MEASURE? With so much fighting over limited parkland and park money, another bond measure could help solve conflicts. Such a bond measure could be used to buy up surplus 4J school property to take the pressure off the current park system, natural space advocates say. A second parks measure was envisioned for next year by the 1998 parks committee. With 94 percent of those surveyed rating parks as very important or important to Eugene's quality of life and the last parks measure passing three to one, such a measure might have wide support. But it doesn't look like it will happen. A new city parks planning committee is chaired by City Councilor Nancy Nathanson, who opposed a new parks bond measure at an October committee meeting, according to minutes. Councilor Betty Taylor says the majority of the council appears to not want parks on the ballot next year to compete with a new $35-million police station that they want to pass. Another funding option would be higher parks system development charges. The city could spend SDCs on buying natural parks and building natural amenities and trails in existing parks, says Fred McVey, the city's SDC analyst. Eugene generates about $1 million a year in parks SDCs, McVey says. Higher rates for developers could bring in much more money. Eugene's parks SDC is the second lowest among 16 other comparable cities in the state. Salem charges almost three times more per new home and Portland charges almost twice as much. But any increase in parks SDCs will likely face stiff opposition from the homebuilders lobby. Even if another parks measure made it on the ballot, Pringle says he and many other natural parks advocates would want clear spending controls to make sure this time that it wasn't another "Trojan horse" for ball fields. "I don't think you can give this department a blank check," he says. "My level of trust has evaporated."
The Battle for Amazon The city of Eugene and ball field advocates want to put two more soccer fields into Amazon Park in a wetland, but natural park advocates say Amazon has already suffered enough sports development. New parking lots, recreation centers, tennis courts, field lights, and the Amazon Parkway have all chipped away at the natural part of the park already, says Tom Pringle. "How much can this park take before it just collapses?" Sharon Blick, a local naturist who shows kids how to dip for fish and frogs in Amazon creek, says she fears that wildlife in the park is declining. "They need to do something to improve the habitat pretty soon." Instead of spending $350,000 on the new fields and thousands more on ongoing maintenance, natural Amazon advocates say the city should restore the park and wetlands with native plants, trees and a meandering creek with islands and pedestrian, bike and jogging trails, bridges and boardwalks to enjoy nature in the heart of the city. But city park staff and sports advocates say they would rather spend the money to drain and fill the low-quality wetlands. "The need for fields now is bigger than ever," Ultimate Frisbee player Corey Dingman said at a meeting last month. The park is already "pretty heavy on the natural side as compared to the active side." But natural parks advocates strongly disagree. "Amazon park has already been overdeveloped," says south Eugene City Councilor Betty Taylor. "So much of it is concrete and buildings now," she says. "There isn't much left of Amazon Park that is natural." People living near Amazon don't want more intensive sports development, Taylor says. "When they talk about putting in a big ball field for the people in north Eugene, if they want to use it, maybe it should be out there." — Alan Pittman
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
