I’ve said it many times before.
In Los Angeles, for many, nearby parks are their leading location and backyard.
Here, the table is placed on the table earlier and celebrates birthdays.
Here, kids learn how to swim and soccer, baseball and basketball for all ages.
Here, neighbors gather to beat the Heat, hike, catch up with concerts, slow down and escape from madness.
But as I said My last columnLos Angeles’ approximately 500 parks and 100 occupied centers cover 16,000 acres, usually in poor condition and many residents are not easily accessible. In fact, in the latest annual rankings of public land trusts, they fell to No. 90 of 100 points The largest recreation and park system in the country is based on access, planting, amenities, investments and equity.
This is shameful and unforgivable, especially for a city preparing to host the World Cup Football Championships and the Olympics. But in every corner of Los Angeles, residents now have the opportunity to weigh what they like or don’t like about the park, what went wrong and what to do.
One month of research, Commissioned by the City, compiled by landscape design company Olin, and released inputs from multiple city planners, community groups and thousands of residents Tuesday, explaining a long history of decline and developing strategies to turn things around.
Residents have a 45-day trade-off (details below). The final report will be delivered to the Recreation and Parks Commission Committee, and then in a perfect world, someone at Town Hall will lead forward and restore the pride of basic but neglected community assets.
Among the main findings of the Needs Assessment Study in the last 500 pages:
Less than half of the survey respondents said there were enough parks and recreation centers within walking distance of the house.
Less than 40% of the parks are in good condition or in good condition.
Los Angeles has less per capita investment in parks ($92 per year) than many other big cities, including Chicago ($182), Dallas ($232), Washington, D.C. ($407), and San Francisco ($583).
The department’s maintenance and operational budget has been stagnant for years, and its staff has been shrinking, and more trouble is in scope as temporary funding sources dry up in the coming years.
Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents will support bonds, taxes or taxes for additional funds.
“I think this confirms what we already know,” Jimmy Kim, general manager of entertainment and parks, said of the needs assessment study, adding that it provides a framework for leveraging existing resources more wisely when pursuing new sources of income. “My message to Los Angeles [is] Please participate in this process. ”
King told me last week that the current labor force is half the time it used to be, and basic park maintenance is like “whack-a-mole’s game.” The department’s budget has grown over the past 15 years but lags behind the city’s budget growth. At that time, it was hit by inflation, citywide budget deficits and rising costs of maintaining aging facilities (deferred maintenance tags are greater than $2 billion).
The department has not been adjusted since the 1930s, and the department has also made obstacles through the per capita funding formula set out in the Charter. And since it is a proprietary department, it means it raises some money through plans and concessions, so it needs to pay its own utility bill and repay employee benefits to the city, both of which account for 40% of the budget.
“In the last century, the same percentage of the city budget has been allocated to parks, but today they are doing more and are on the frontlines of many critical public services, such as Covid response and fire response. They have had less work in the past 15 years.”
In my previous column, I arranged one of the easiest and fastest ways to add more park space – Unlock the door to the unified campus of Los Angeles. Ten have been open so far, with new agreements between cities and school districts paving the way for more roads, although the two major obstacles are funding and the need to replace blacktops with green plants.
To calculate how to better utilize existing resources, the study used an approach developed by the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. The Persquaremile tool breaks the city a tiny grid and identifies two twelve park locations, with improved facilities likely to affect the largest number of people, and thirty locations converting schools and other public places into parks will serve hundreds of thousands of people.
“This is the biggest benefit for the most effective people,” said Jon Christensen of UCLA College.
Guillermo Rodriguez, a member of the Research Steering Committee and Director of the California Public Land Trust Ranking at the bottom In the largest 100 park systems.
“The city has invested in all its investments and Los Angeles is lagging behind,” Rodriguez said.
The study cites several income-generating options, including a charter amendment to increase the percentage of parks’ funding, expands the nonprofit partnership, expands the Proposition K, a park improvement measure to expire in 1996 and raises a new fundraising program at the fall 2026 vote.
“In every government [Mayor] Tom Bradley, the park system is taken for granted. “There are no more audio tapes, no more paint, no more magic to repair the park,” Rodriguez said. It does require leadership and a huge investment, and I think Angelens is ready to step up. ”
The leader will have to come from Mayor Karen Bass and every member of the city council. So if you want to get their attention, there will be two public meetings:
Thursday at Bellevue Entertainment Center in Silver Lake from 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturday at Westwood Entertainment Center from 10 a.m. to noon.
For a schedule for future virtual meetings and reading an online copy of the needs assessment study, go to need. parks.lacity.gov.
