The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an article in today’s paper about the audit report of the Milwaukee County Parks system which I wrote about yesterday.
For the most part, the article simply restates what the audit report says with a few quotes sprinkled in for good measure.
The one thing I was disappointed about is the headline for the article, “Sales of county parkland suggested”.
The sale of parkland is one of many recommendations made in the audit, so why did the JS choose to imply with a headline like that a sale was the only suggestion made?
Frankly, it’s sloppy and poor reporting more interested in generating “buzz” than actually reporting the findings of the audit report. Unfortunately, it’s what the public will consume and another glaring example of the sorry state of Wisconsin’s largest daily newspaper.
For the record, here are all the recommendations in the order they were made in the audit:
- Establish criteria for determining whether a facility should be fixed or demolished.
- Replace some current facilities with alternative structures that have lower construction and/or maintenance costs.
- Expand opportunities for the types of public/private partnerships that have successfully leveraged private capital in the maintenance and improvement of several Parks locations.
- Undertake a comprehensive assessment of current and future Parks developments, taking into consideration alternatives to reduce overall infrastructure costs. Another alternative that could be considered in this assessment is the potential for divestiture of some County parkland. Divestiture could take the form of sale for development, or transfer to a municipality or non-profit entity for continuation or development of recreational use. Various restrictions associated with the original acquisition of parkland (e.g., federal funding requirements, deed restrictions on donated land, etc.) could prohibit or severely restrict divestiture options for many Park system holdings.
Why the reporter or editor from the Journal Sentinel went down the path of selecting the fourth recommendation as the headline and focus for the story is telling and unfortunate.
As for the issue of selling park land itself, I’d argue that it would do nothing to address the long term problems the parks are facing nor would it address the massive amount of deferred maintenance. If you simply sell off a portion of parkland without addressing the root issue, in five or ten years you’ll simply be in the same situation because you’ve failed to maintain the parks that you didn’t sell off the first time.
The “solution” of selling park land in Milwaukee County to address the $200 – $300 million in deferred maintenance would be about as logical as amputating your foot because you need hip replacement surgery. It does nothing – zero – to address to real issue which is an unstable and unsustainable funding source for the Milwaukee County Parks. That is the problem which has led to deferred maintenance and until we get serious and deal with the funding for our parks, all the posturing in the world about how to alleviate the symptoms won’t make a bit of difference.
The real solution is a dedicated and secure funding source for the Milwaukee County Parks just like the one voters approved last November. It’s only with a secure and dedicated funding source that we can even begin to address the massive amount of deferred maintenance that needs to be done and reverse the downward spiral of one of Milwaukee’s greatest treasures: it’s 15,000 acres of public park land.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and son Carter.
