Should we or should we not have a county parks system? The question before voters is that simple. Because if voters do not approve this property tax levy, we functionally won’t have one.
The 6-year levy, last approved by voters in 2019, will support 250 parks in King County 185 miles of regional trails, 215 miles of backcountry trails and 50 square miles of open space for we, the people, to frolic, picnic, bike, and aimlessly wander. There’s splash parks, pools, ballfields, and play courts of various kinds for racket-oriented aristocrats. If we renew this levy, we maintain that system and homeowners pay 24 cents per thousand dollars of their home value each month. For the median homeowner, that comes out to $16.38 a month. It would generate $1.45 billion over the next six years.
If we don’t renew this levy, say goodbye to new infrastructure improvements. Advocates say the county would close parks, or put up signs telling people to recreate at their own risk. Lawns will grow long, hedges wild. After-school programs that depend on county parks funding will suffer. We hope you and your kids like pissing yourselves, because we won’t have anybody to open the restrooms. It’s not a world we want to live in.
When the SECB suggested we hold our endorsement meeting in a park, it could not have known we’d meet with this levy’s well-prepared stakeholders on the hottest day of the year so far, a 90+ degree scorcher, with glaring, headache-inducing sunlight bouncing from the concrete like a mirror. We could go on complaining about this thing that was our fault, but it wouldn’t be fair to the people who sat on the porch outside the community center at the genuinely lovely Steve Cox Memorial Park in White Center with us, or the “Log Cabin,” as it is affectionately known. It’d be especially unfair to Fin Crispy Jr., the mascot of the park’s resident summer collegiate baseball team, The DubSea Fish Sticks. They were getting deep fried in there. We didn’t see you leave Fin Crispy Jr., but hope you survived, even if childhood experiences have made some of our stomachs twist into knots whenever mascots are near (it’s a combination of your large size, wide-open, smiling mouths, and mime-like silence. It’s very disconcerting).
Like we said, this levy is a no-brainer. It is also uncontested. The advocates, including County Council Member Teresa Mosqueda and Christie True, the county’s former head of natural resources and parks, could have easily shown up, sat down, told us to “vote for this or the parks are screwed,” and called it a day. But they came with data. With a deep love of the parks. Even answers for why the wealthy, who don’t think the county parks are worth a few quarters a day when their backyard, waterfront tennis courts are right there, should vote for this.
No matter how rich they are, they don’t own Tiger Mountain, where they race wildly-expensive mountain bikes (yet), or the county-owned pool where little Richie Rich III has his swim meets. If this is you, and “eyesores” are one of your top concerns, consider the weeds. Are you going to schlep a bag and a weeder to your local park, or are you willing to cough up less than a dollar a day so someone else will? We’re willing to bet that’s less than the going rate for a gardener. But those homeowners would probably know better than us.
When we pool our money together, we can all have nice things. Even those with little to spare. In Seattle, we’re lousy with parks. But many of the diverse, immigrant populated areas of unincorporated King County aren’t. They depend on this money. Everyone deserves a place to play, to enjoy themselves, to throw a party, to organize a cultural event, and not have to pay for it. Bummed about another property tax? Take it up with the Washington Legislature, which needed to figure out progressive revenue solutions, like, yesterday.
Keeping these parks open and thriving at a time when we’re still trying to recover from the isolation and depression of the pandemic and so much public money is under federal threat is literally our civic duty.
Vote YES, or don’t let us catch you frolicking in a public green space ever again.
