Parks face uncertain future

A century after Spokane built an enviable park system under the renowned Olmsted Brothers, growth in the city parks system has been hobbled by financial problems and political turmoil.

The city has seen few large park improvements since Riverfront Park opened in 1975.

Today, uncertainty surrounds several major projects, including a long-sought science center on the north bank of the Spokane River, creation of a sports complex at Joe Albi Stadium and improvements to the city’s aging collection of swimming pools.

City parks officials recently learned in a survey that the public might support a bond issue for improving swimming pools, but only if the money goes to fix up the five existing outdoor pools first, said parks spokeswoman Nancy Goodspeed.

A slow economy in years past and tight city budgets are as much to blame as anything, said City Councilman Bob Apple, explaining that while big projects have lagged for lack of money, the city parks staff has done a good job of maintaining the Olmsted legacy in smaller ways.

“Sometimes, the improvements are slow to come; often it’s the restrictions of money,” Apple said.

The money problem has been so acute that the Park Board has declined to take on any big new projects unless they pay for themselves. Proposals for the science center and sports complex gained endorsements because they would have admission fees and other income.

The fractious nature of Spokane politics has been another obstacle to park development.

An original proposal to build a science center in the Pavilion at Riverfront Park was narrowly rejected by voters in 1995, causing proponents to seek a former dairy site to the north of the park, an acquisition that received funding through a voter-approved bond issue in 1999.

Now, the Mobius organization, which would build the center by 2010, says it is on track with its fundraising timeline outlined in an agreement last year with the Park Board. Its lease of 5.7 acres of park-owned land hinges on meeting the timeline.

The softball complex was initially proposed for parkland near Northpointe shopping center, but opposition in the adjoining neighborhood caused parks officials to seek voter approval in a separate measure in 1999 to move the project to Albi. Then, planning for the complex languished in the Parks Department for years. In 2005, former Mayor Jim West tried to sell the Albi property, but was stopped by the City Council.

Two years later, efforts are just now gaining ground to resurrect the sports complex plan in the first phase of improvements at Albi, which would include new hiking and biking trails between Albi and Riverside State Park to the west.

City Councilman Brad Stark, who served on the Park Board for two years, said the slow pace of improvements “ultimately comes down to a leadership issue.”

Stark has become a critic of the Parks Department and has called for changes in the way the parks system is funded and overseen. He objects to the City Charter provisions that give the Park Board and park management essentially carte blanche for spending 8 percent of the general fund without greater accountability.

He said the Parks Department is unresponsive and unaccountable and pointed to an efficiency study which showed that parks management got low marks from its own employees.

Parks currently operates under a volunteer board appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council, a system set up to insulate it from politics. Stark and other council members said there is not enough geographic diversity among its current members.

Martha Lou Wheatley-Billeter, a member of the Park Board, said that despite financial limitations, the park staff has accomplished a lot. Last winter, they installed automated sprinklers in Hays Park, an Olmsted-era park, at Crestline Street and Providence Avenue. The sprinklers will have sensors to achieve water conservation and shut down lines if there is a breakage. It is one of several parks being converted by in-house staff to automated systems to reduce the cost of labor for hand-setting sprinklers during summers.

“They are doing an incredible job when they could use more resources,” she said. “It would be wonderful to have some new parks coming on board.”

Budget cuts over the past several years have forced parks management to take a cautious approach to new additions to the system; thus the Park Board policy that new additions must come with their own revenue. Recreation programs, including senior center funding, have been threatened by budget cuts.

Also, parks funding has been reduced over the years by mayors who supported converting some general fund spending to “enterprise funds,” which had the effect of reducing the Parks Department’s 8 percent allocation.

In other problems, a historic garden being restored this year in Pioneer Park on the South Hill was supposed to have an endowment fund for operation and maintenance, but a dispute with a donor led to withdrawal of money previously pledged to the endowment. Stark said he is most concerned about the condition of city parks. He complains that Thornton-Murphy Park on the South Side is often littered with dog feces and that the pond at Manito Park is in bad condition. However, the department has made improvements at the heavily used pond over the years.

A project to upgrade the old Boeing amphitheater area at the east end of Riverfront Park, and to open up views of the river upstream from the park, is now getting started after being approved by the Park Board in 2003. The work is being paid for, in part, through money left over from a 1999 voter-approved bond issue.

Work to develop a Fish Lake Trail on an old railroad bed purchased in 1991 got some new funding from the Legislature this year.

Councilman Apple said that parks staff does a good job of maintaining city parks, and has largely kept intact the legacy of the Olmsted Brothers, of Brookline, Mass., who wrote the celebrated park master plan for the city in the early 1900s.

“We have a parks program that is unparalleled around this country for the size we are. Look at the wealth of amenities,” Apple said.

An analysis of city parks done a few years ago showed that Spokane has about eight acres of developed parks for every 1,000 residents. The National Parks and Recreation Association has established a guideline of 10 acres of developed parks for every 1,000 residents.

But Spokane also has 12 acres of undeveloped conservation land for every 1,000 residents, and the city is ringed with state parks facilities, including Riverside State Park, Mount Spokane and the Centennial Trail.

Total city park holdings stand at about 4,100 acres at more than 120 sites.

Among those holdings are parcels acquired over the years in Peaceful Valley in the area where the Olmsteds recommended a “gorge park.” The city has extensive conservation holdings on the north side of the river below the Monroe Street Bridge.

In 1989, the Parks Department purchased the old Spokane Casket Co. building west of the Maple Street Bridge along the river and in 2000 demolished the building to create a small new park, furthering the long-term vision of the Olmsteds.