Parking cold cash in parks

By CRAIG NORTHRUP

Staff Writer

Coeur d’Alene’s parks could see a lot more green this fall.

That’s thanks primarily to the city’s new garage. Officials are preparing to deliver a preliminary budget plan for next week’s City Council meeting that would earmark more than $400,000 from projected parking revenue and move it into the parks budget.

Bill Greenwood, director of parks and recreation, said the revenue projection would be a much-needed boost to his department.

“I don’t think people understand how much land we have to maintain,” Greenwood said. “We look after almost 600 acres, which includes 30 developed parks and 210 acres of undeveloped land. These are high-quality parks that will benefit from those funds.”

When asked what the average Coeur d’Alene park costs to maintain, Greenwood said the variables involved make the term “average Coeur d’Alene park” a contradiction in terms.

“Take Ramsey Park, for example,” he suggested. “That’s a 30-acre park. A four-man team can manage that pretty efficiently, pretty quickly. Compare that to McEuen [Park], which has so many more amenities to it. McEuen takes a much bigger staff, and it’s never unmanned.”

The new growth revenue will be divided — almost in half — into two funds. The first is the parks capital fund, which pays for long-term projects and assets intended to last 10 years or longer. If the financial plan is approved, the fund also will pay for wildfire mitigation.

“One of the most important things it will pay for in 2020 is a needed forest management plan for Tubbs Hill,” said Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer.

Projections for the parks capital fund were all but zeroed out earlier this year, promised to the Memorial Field grandstand remodel.

The preliminary budget plan to be delivered Tuesday is what’s known as the “high-water mark” in the budget process, the bar city administration hopes to set. In the next six weeks, council and staff will crunch the numbers before a final budget is voted on.

That said, while projections are exactly that — projections — City Administrator Troy Tymesen said parking figures are far more accurate than estimated guesses.

“We budget everything off projections,” Tymesen said, “but with parking? We can tell you the weather on a particular day based solely off of parking revenue. It’s that directly correlated. It’s that exact. This new growth is promising, but really, our goal is to keep this funding ongoing, to build on a revenue stream that keeps our parks green.”

Greenwood and Tymesen said if the city happens to collect more than what was projected, the additional money would go toward the second account the new revenue would fund: maintenance.

“We keep looking at all this green space,” Tymesen said. “We keep trying to find ways to maintain it … The new piece of this is the new paradigm, the parking garage and our parking lots. As we’ve increased the gross income through the garage, we’re also understanding [with] these lots all around town, a lot of them are in the best shape they’ve ever been. They need upkeep, and others need to be improved upon, but we have great lots, which makes it easier for people to enjoy our parks.”

Part of the maintenance fund’s new money will include enough to hire an extra member of the maintenance staff.

“It will also allow us to pay for maintenance personnel and equipment for both our parks and our parking facilities by using parking funds,” Widmyer emphasized, “and not property taxes.”

Widmyer added that keeping a high quality of parks over the breadth of the city takes more than just money.

“Coeur d’Alene has built such fabulous parks under the leadership of past parks directors Doug Eastwood, Steve Anthony and now current director Bill Greenwood,” he said. “Our citizens have fallen in love with the parks that have been created, and they expect them to be maintained at a high level. This will be true, as well, with that fabulous waterfront park that the city is creating at the Atlas Mill site.”

“We’re excited to see how the Atlas Mill [park] comes together,” Greenwood said. “We’ll put out the bid in the next couple of weeks, and I think we can get some of the earth work done this fall.”

The City Council must vote on the high-water plan. If eventually finalized into the budget, the funds will likely become available on or around Oct. 1.