Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise when a municipal panel known as an "advisory board" chooses to punt tough decisions. Their job is to offer advice to the people who ultimately will make a decision.
At a recent meeting, the Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Advisory Board fully embraced its advisory nature. Mayor Lioneld Jordan's administration anticipates asking the City Council to set a bond election in the first few months of next year. City leaders are pondering what will be included in a sales tax-supported bond issue election in 2019. For discussion purposes so far, city officials have anticipated a total level of debt around the $200 million mark.
What’s the point?
An advisory board in Fayetteville made up its wish list for city parks but left the hard decisions to the mayor and City Council.
The capital projects sales tax already exists. With voter approval, the sales tax would continue. The new set of projects would be paid off between 15 and 20 years, according to city projections.
The administration asked departments as well as City Council members to drum up their ideas of where Fayetteville taxpayers should spend their money. With regard to parks and recreation, Jordan's administration began with two possibilities: A $25 million share of the bond issue or a $20 million share. The advisory board's job was to fill in the details, to recommend two lists of parks-related projects, one totalling $25 million and the other constrained by the lesser amount.
So, last week, the advisory board recommended this: nearly $42 million.
Apparently, members of the parks board operate under a theory, popular with kids around Christmastime, that you don't get what you don't ask for. So they asked. Their advice to the mayor and City Council was, essentially, "we include; you decide."
The parks staff, based on research, master plans and other longer-term study of projects and costs, formulated two spreadsheets meeting the administration's request for the two different spending thresholds. Those included important parks projects such as the continued build-out of Kessler Mountain Regional Park, upgrades to community and neighborhood parks, nature trails, a paddle park and other amenities.
Advocates for two more projects showed up last week. One group wants the city to allocate millions of dollars to acquire Lewis Park, where kids' soccer programs have played out for years, from the University of Arkansas. Another group wants millions -- figures ranged from $9.5 million to $24 million -- for construction of an indoor aquatics facility.
It was easy to tell the advisory board doesn't have to balance the books at the end of the day. Everyone left the meeting happy. Chairman Richie Lamb explained his thought process: We're the parks advisory board. We're here to advise. If we think all these projects would be great for Fayetteville, then it's our job to bring them to the attention of the mayor and City Council.
In other words, or at least in our words, the board saw their job as delivering a wish list, one unconstrained by limitations on funding. Lamb suggested the city's parks and recreation efforts, popular as they are, should get more than $25 million of a $200 million bond issue.
The unfortunate part of last week's effort was how the inclusion of the extra $16 million seemed to be a whim, compared to the detailed efforts that had gone into estimates for the two constrained lists. For the aquatics facility, for example, the numbers included in the advisory board's recommendation were just plucked from conversations during the meeting. Lamb suggested $9.5 million based off a Google search; an aquatics center supporter went as high as $24 million for what they described as a world-class facility. But precision wasn't the goal; getting it on the list was. With the parks and recreation advisory board in a giving mood, that didn't prove difficult.
The decision communicates to the mayor and City Council what is accurate, that the decision ultimately is theirs. We suspect the administration was hoping for a little help to whittle down the list, not add to it.
The city's elected leaders can -- and probably already do -- expect to be lobbied hard over the next few months. A potential pot of money to spend on projects around the city only comes along every 15 years or so. Other projects will vie for funding, whether it's police or fire facilities, street projects or others.
Advocates for indoor pools and parks land acquisitions are doing what anyone with an idea should be doing -- make it known to city leaders. Voice support or, if so led, opposition.
Then next spring, city residents will be one job left: Casting a ballot.
Commentary on 09/18/2018