Parks master plan lays out $25 million funding scenario; maintenance building, senior center and auditorium top list

Darren (staff member) told the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board on April 14 that staff and consultants have drafted a prioritized list of park projects to align with a potential renewal of the city’s capital improvement half‑cent sales tax.

“We were starting off that way — there are a lot of ifs here,” Darren said while presenting a handout of suggested projects, stressing the draft nature of the list and several budget assumptions.

City staff estimated that renewing the existing half‑cent capital improvement sales tax and applying a 2 percent annual growth rate would yield roughly $24.5–$25 million over an eight‑year renewal term. If the city split that total roughly in half between emergency response and parks, Darren said parks would have about $12.5 million to allocate; staff emphasized emergency‑response needs had not yet submitted their full priorities.

Why it matters: board members and staff framed the discussion as a way to produce a vetted, public priority list that the mayor and an eventual citizen committee could use if the council places a renewal question on the 2026 ballot. Staff also said a separate half‑cent transportation sales tax that funds street projects and federal grant matches is being discussed for…