What does Los Gatos actually pay to maintain its parks?
Los Gatos has 14 parks: Bachman, Belgatos, Blossom Hill, Fairview Plaza, Howes Play Lot, La Rinconada, Live Oak Manor, Los Gatos Creek Trail, Novitiate, Oak Meadow, Pageant Grounds, Worcester Park, and Town Plaza.
Parks and Public Works maintains 348.2 acres of parks, open space, and median islands, plus 12.9 miles of trails (another 18.76 acres, we estimate). The budget line item is $1.9 million, or $5,215 per acre per year.
"We don’t break down the costs by park," explains Los Gatos Director of Parks and Public Works Kevin Rohani.
The Park Services budget, according to the town budget, includes "maintaining plants, trees, lawns, irrigation systems in town parks, town facilities, street median islands, public right-of-ways, parking lots, trails and open space areas. Additional services include managing park use fees and reservations, providing code enforcement in the town’s parks and open space areas and ensuring the safety of parks playground equipment.” The proposed budget for Park Services this year is $1,913,720.
The half-acre skatepark property at 41 Miles Ave. would cost the town, roughly, $2,634 per year to maintain along with its existing lands.
An $8 per hour supervisor would cost considerably more. If the skatepark is open 4 hours each weekday and 12 hours each weekend day, we would need 2,288 hours of staffing--approximately $25,000 per year.
Who paid for the parks and recreational facilities we have today in Los Gatos?
"The Town issued general obligation bonds in 1965 for the acquisition and construction of park and recreational facilities," according to Assistant Town Manager Pamela Jacobs. "These bonds were approved by at least 2/3 of Los Gatos voters. Repayment of the bonds was through ad valorem taxes on residential and commercial property within the Town."
A skatepark would primarily serve skateboard users, just as the town's tennis courts are mostly used by tennis players.
The tennis courts at Blossom Hill Park were constructed in 1975-76 as part of the park project, and the approximate cost of upkeep of the tennis courts is one hour a week, or $3,262 per year. LGS Recreation uses the courts about 20 days a year and pays the town $15 a day plus a $75 park use fee. (This is the same rate LGS Recreation pays to use the lawn at Blossom Hill park for soccer practice.)
It is unclear who built Baggerly Field at Blossom Hill Park and Balzer Field on Miles Ave. The Little League pays the town $1,000 a year, plus $300 a month for utilities for both, and they maintain the fields. According to Little League Fields Director Bob Hayden, the Little League spent $50,000 this year to replace the infields and refurbish the outfields. The town invested about $125,000, mostly park bond funds, in the snack shack facility adjacent to Balzer Field. The enlarged building includes brand new, handicap-accessible men and women's restrooms.
Fairview Plaza, a very small neighborhood park in a center island encircled by about a dozen houses, was deeded to the Town about 1915. According to Assistant Town Manager Jacobs, the residents maintained the park prior to the town's improvements (funded by state bond grants) to the park in fiscal year 2003-04. Since that time, the town has maintained the park, aggregating it with the others. Parks Commission chair Richard Konrad lives in Fairview Plaza.
The town periodically invests in its park infrastructure with an ongoing series of capital improvement projects. The completely renovated Town Plaza at Santa Cruz Ave. and Main St. is one example. There, the fountain was replaced with an interactive, computer-controlled fountain, mostly for the benefit of small children.
The Town Plaza project was originally expected to cost $700,000, with the old fountain to remain. In Sept. 2001, during the design phase, it was determined that the fountain needed to be replaced for operational reasons--adding $300 to $350 thousand to the cost. The town council suggested, at the time, that the difference could be made up by private fundraising. In Dec. 2001, councilmembers approved increasing the project's budget to $1,509,267, which included amending the town's budget and allocating appropriate redevelopment agency funds. The private fundraising idea was not pursued.
In 2002, the council authorized spending an estimated $3 million for construction (and just less than $100,000 in design fees) to replace the sidewalks downtown with brick-outlined concrete and brick planters at the crosswalks.
Los Gatos High School's new $2.8 million swimming pool was funded by a $1 million grant from the Valley Foundation, a $300,000 donation from the Town of Los Gatos, and $1.3 million from the Los Gatos Community Pool Foundation, which hired a professional fundraising company. One LGHS student gave $1,000 in scholarship funds to the pool, and the Class of 2002 donated $5,000.
What have other communities done?
There are at least 9 skateparks in Santa Clara County, ranging from flat parks with metal ramps at Mountain View and in Campbell, to the highly rated Sunnyvale Fair Oaks park. Palo Alto installed their park in 1990 as a result of outlawing stakeboards on the street. Santa Clara's $400,000 park, built in 2000, is for city residents only. None of the 9 were built with private donations.
Sunnyvale's park is 18,500 sq. ft. built for $570,092 (just over $30/sq. ft.) in 2002-03. Other skateparks include Gilroy, Palo Alto, a second in Sunnyvale and two in San Jose: Stonegate and Plato Arroyo. Gilroy's skatepark project began in 1997, before the state shielded communities from liability, and was funded by development impact fees only.
The person answering the phone in the City of Santa Cruz office denied that there was any intention to request private donations for that city's two skateparks. The top-rated Wave park cost $1.3 million, including a $200,000 bond.
Scotts Valley, with a third of the Los Gatos/Monte Sereno population, has a public recreation area to make anyone envious. On a cul-de-sac next to the transit center, down the street from the for-profit ice rink, is a community center, a senior center in a separate building, a soccer park, and the 22,000 sq. ft. Sky Park skatepark, rated just below Santa Cruz' Wave park. It cost about $750,000. It is fenced, but not supervised. "The liability would cost as much as staffing," we were told.
The Los Gatos Skatepark that Measure D would approve is about half the size of the Scotts Valley facility.
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