Saturday, June 21, 2008

Transit, Railyards, the County, & Parkway Funding

This article in today’s Bee makes a good point that now that the ridership on mass transit is going up due to gas prices, is not a good time to cut funding for it; rather raising it might be more in order as the increased ridership could go away as fast as it came if the new riders find the service shoddy.

The continued progress on the Railyards is heartening, as this new money indicates—though the city did not support it as their priority—making another point about the mayoral election, which the challenger is sure to raise.

The County budget moves towards completion and with this continuing deficit, the budget of the Parkway, already suffering under a multi-year maintenance deficit of about $1.5 million annually, will sink further in the hole.

The solution we have proposed for stabilizing funding for the American River Parkway is to establish a nonprofit organization to contract with a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) of local government entities, to manage the Parkway and provide a supplemental fund raising capability through philanthropy, which you can read more about on our website’s news page in our press release from January 18, 2008. it's the second one down.

This is the model being used by the Central Park Conservancy to manage Central Park in New York and the Sacramento Zoological Society to manage the Sacramento Zoo.