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Health & Fitness

Vote YES for the Bonney Lake Metropolitan Park District (MPD) on April 23, 2013 - Part 7a

Responses to opposition factoids and misstatements!

On Thursday, March 14th, my wife and I attended a short course in Economic Development and Community Design that was held at the Dacca Barn in Fife. There were 3 speakers during the well-attended session. Bonney Lake was represented by a couple of Planning Commissioner’s and a City Planner. The three speakers were: Maury Foreman (Economic Development: Know It When You See It), Ken Harper (Legal Primer on Planning and Development in Washington), and Mark Hinshaw (The Relationship of Planning, Economic Development, and Community).

The emphasis by all three speakers, of course, was on Economic Development. During the presentation, the presenters stated that Parks, Art and Culture are a crucial part of Economic  Development if a community is truly going to grow and  succeed. When a community offers parks and facilities, trails, opportunities for socializing, history, arts, and cultural events, then it draws people to your city. These people frequently shop, eat, and spend additional time before leaving. This makes a community desirable, and developers recognize this and their construction brings new residents.

All park lands will continue to belong to the city and the employees providing operations and maintenance work in the parks will continue to work for the City of Bonney Lake and will be paid for out of the current budget of the city. However, at some point in time, a Park Director should be hired, plans laid out to migrate park lands from the city to the MPD and also the transition of some employees from the city to the MPD. Or the plan could require bringing in new employees to provide ongoing operations and maintenance of the parks with all current employees continuing to work for the city in other areas. This will be determined by the interim City Council/MPD Board after “We the People” have approved the MPD on April 23, 2013.

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  • Some in the opposition would like to have plans created before ‘we the people’ even have a chance to decide whether we want an MPD, or not. In fact, those opposing an MPD did not even want the city council to allow “we the people” to vote on the issue. Now that we have the opportunity to make our choice, they have clouded the subject with misstatements and half-truths. They seem to want a long term bond purchased for a specific project that will have an end date at some point in the future. While this might develop a new element for the park, like a trail, a community center, or a sports complex it does not provide any funds for the daily operations and maintenance. Through creation of a Metropolitan Park District , we’ll be able to fund creation, development, operation and maintenance of new park elements, that are chosen, along with providing operations and maintenance of current park elements
  • If any of you were in attendance at last night’s city council workshop, you would have heard what happens to those budget items not deemed priority. Comments from those against the MPD have stated that the city has the funds available in the budget, but money for parks have come from the city’s General Fund. When a new or unplanned need for funds occurs, then park projects get eliminated or moved to a future, as yet to be determined, time frame. If we have an MPD all funds collected for the MPD will only be used for parks and cannot be used, or tied to the city’s General Fund.
  • Is this a “forever tax” as some in the opposition claim? Not by any means. It can be created during the democratic process of a vote of “We the People”, and it can also be dissolved through the same process. It appears those opposed are afraid that “We the People” may want to continue to make sure that our parks, trails, etc. will be there for our future generations.
  • Can the taxes continue to be raised again, and again, and again, forever without a vote of the people as some in the opposition claim? Absolutely NOT, per RCW the taxable limit for an MPD is $0.75 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. The following link will allow you to determine what your taxes might be: (http://www.ci.bonney-lake.wa.us/section_government/property_tax_allocator.shtml). If funding is needed beyond the $0.75 per $1,000 then it will have to be brought before the voters for approval and would require a vote of 60% for approval. This information comes from the MPD links on the city web site: http://www.ci.bonney-lake.wa.us/UserFiles/File/Government_Downloads/Park_District/Metropolitan%20Park%20District%20in%20Bonney.pdf – check pages 8 of 18 & 11 of 18 to find out about taxing hierarchy which will have an impact on how much can be taxed. There are 3 levels higher than an MPD (library, hospital, and fire) and 4 districts that are lower (port, park & recreation, flood control, and cemetery),  
  • Some in the opposition are concerned that eminent domain can be used with approval of an MPD. By state law, the city can already use eminent domain; however, the current council has elected not to do this. This is no guarantee that a future council wouldn’t find a need to decide differently.

I seem to be running long on this, and have more to say, so I’m splitting this write-up into two parts, 7a and 7b.

I would certainly hope that if readers still have questions that you’ll take the time to log into Facebook and check out our site Bonney Lake Metropolitan Park District, or go to either of our websites at www.YESMPD.com or www.BLParks.org to see if we’ve answered your questions.

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Ballots will be in your mailbox soon, and I urge everyone to VOTE YES for the Metropolitan Park District on April 23rd. If you’d like to read the voters pamphlet before you receive yours, here’s a link: http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/DocumentCenter/View/22957

Thanks for your time, I hope you read 7b. 

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