ST. GEORGE — For the first time in as long as anyone in authority can remember, facilities have been removed from a St. George park with no firm plans in the budget to replace them.
The playground equipment at Bloomington Hills Park South has been stripped from the woodchip play area. All that remains is a swing set and some vertical monkey bars, leaving a bare brown patch in the middle of the park.
Mayor Michele Randall told St. George News that knowing the equipment was being removed without being replaced is troubling.
“We’ve never done that,” she said. “One aspect of this great city that we should fully appreciate is our parks and trails system. They’re beautiful and safe, and we should do whatever’s necessary to keep them that way.”
Just before the equipment was removed, St. George News met with city of St. George Director of Leisure Services Shane Moore at the park, which is situated in the center of a neighborhood near the southern edge of the city.
“As parks are meant to be,” Moore said, picking up some loose pieces of trash strewn about the park’s lush, expansive lawn. “I love the metaphor here. This park is literally and figuratively the center of the neighborhood, the community.”
The playground equipment, which was installed in 2002, is long overdue to be replaced, Moore said. Where there was once a tube that connected two platforms, two sheets of plywood were placed to prevent children from trying to traverse the space. About 8 feet separates the platforms.
“This park doesn’t feel like St. George-quality,” Moore said, standing in the gap between platforms. “We also need to replace these woodchips. They’re maintenance-heavy, and they don’t meet American with Disabilities Act standards. They cause real problems for people in wheelchairs.”
For Moore, quality of life is the key.
“Focusing on that has revitalized my career time and again,” he said. “Our parks and trails give us quality-of-life benefits that can’t be measured in money.”
Moore’s point could be seen in action, as three generations of a family – grandfather, mom and young child – played together on the dilapidated structure. Yet, the budget to replace the equipment – about $500,000 – was taken from the parks and trails fund and moved to public safety.
A reallocation of over $2 million has yet to be made up in the city budget after the St. George City Council voted against a property tax increase in August, leaving Bloomington Hills Park South and a dozen other parks, trails and facilities without the funding necessary for needed repairs.
“We didn’t want to have to pull funding from parks, for instance, because then we would have to find those funds somewhere else,” St. George City Councilwoman Dannielle Larkin told St. George News. “Maintenance of our parks and trails doesn’t just go away.”
The City Council voted to pull funds from the following line items, which were deemed “low priority.”
- Red Hills Maintenance Building – $300,000
- Sugarloaf Trail – $850,000
- Electric Theater Ticket Booth – $68,300
- Electric Theater Lights – $31,989
- Net Extension at the Little Valley Softball Complex – $44,000
- Bloomington Hills Park South Renovation – $500,000
- Cemetery Roadway – $85,000
- Cemetery Cinderblock Wall – $55,000
- Unfilled Park Planning Position – $112,493
- Andrus Home Rehab – $50,000
- Batting Cages – $2,000
- Engineer Public Works Position – $102,000
- Sundry Charge in Economic Vitality – $67,700
The cuts, adopted by the council on Aug. 25, amount to $2,228,482.
Larkin said it’s a Band-Aid solution.
“We didn’t want to pay the $5 million this year,” she said. “But when we revisit this issue – and we will have to revisit it – everything we needed will cost more. We’ll need $6 million next time. Maybe more.”
Moore paused when asked by St. George News whether he thought funds were being mismanaged.
“We’ve always worked on a lean budget,” Moore said. “During the Great Recession, our budget was cut by 20%. We’re beholden to city leaders and citizens. We’ve been good stewards of our available funds. And we know how to stretch every dollar.”
City Councilwoman Michelle Tanner recently suggested to St. George News that where parks are concerned, privatization may be the way to go.
“We need to be creative,” she said. “There are so many organizations looking to do service projects, and we’ve got a lot that could be mutually beneficial.”
On the suggestion of exploring the option of privatizing some parks and trails services in lieu of public tax dollars, Moore pointed to botched attempts to privatize parks in northern Utah.
“Within a short time, they had to hire back everybody they laid off,” he said of the city of Layton’s attempt. “Salt Lake City tried to privatize a section of the Salt Lake City Cemetery, but the company that had taken over quit. It was too labor intensive, so it was hard to provide top-notch service while still making a profit.”
Police Chief Kyle Whitehead said that recreation programs offered by Leisure Services departments like those in St. George offer residents affordable opportunities to get out and play.
“But they also keep young people out of trouble,” Whitehead said. “Right now, the city offers a lot of programs for kids that are very reasonably priced. There’s a golf program that is very popular. I’ve had my kids in the mountain bike classes and the climbing classes; things that many citizens couldn’t afford otherwise.”
If a private company took over those programs, Whitehead reasoned, their primary objective would be to turn a profit.
“Who can participate?” he asked. “People who can afford it will put their kids in the programs. The people that don’t have money will be left out.”
In which case, Whitehead added, those young people will no longer have access to activities that currently occupy their time after school and during summer break.
“Which increases delinquency,” he said. “We’ll start to see more crime.”
While the overall question of the parks department’s budget deficit remains open, elected officials now at least appear poised to move forward with renovations at Bloomington Hills Park South. During a meeting Oct. 27, the City Council heard from Moore about a source of alternative funding that could allow the playground equipment to be replaced sooner than later.
The new equipment is estimated to run $440,000-$480,000, and city staff reportedly found up to $2.9 million in excess RAP tax revenue – short for recreation, arts and parks – that could be used to pay for the improvements.
“I’d much rather see us rehab old parks over building new ones,” Randall said. “We’ve let that park decay and crumble, and it’s not fair to the people that live out there.”
The park is proposed to be renovated in three phases, with an overall cost of $1.2 million. In addition to a new playground, the park will also be made compliant with the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The council appeared largely in favor of using the RAP funding for the park renovations. Before any action can be taken, however, the council needs to vote to approve a budget amendment allowing the tax revenue to be applied to the park. A member of the city staff said this could happen by mid-November.
St. George News Senior Reporter Mori Kessler and Editor-in-Chief Joseph Witham contributed to this report.
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