Former mayor urges council to advance Metropolitan Park District to address park funding gap

Former mayor and long-time resident Mark Brown used his public-comment time to urge the Lacey City Council to act on recommendations from the Park Improvement Funding work group and to present voters with a robust Metropolitan Park District proposal to fund parks.

Brown said he participated on the work group and praised parks staff and fellow volunteers for taking a detailed look at the city’s parks program. He summarized the funding challenge: “Over $6,000,000 just to replace what we already have,” Brown said, and added that the city’s capital improvement list totals about $50,000,000; he said the top 10 projects alone add up to “over $9,000,000.” Brown told council that if the goal is “to find a sustainable, predictable, long term and sufficient revenue source to fund this unfunded need … the Metropolitan Park District is really the only option that does that.”

Brown said he understood council members wanted more information — he referenced a council member’s earlier request to gather options — but urged the council to move the district proposal to the voters as soon as practicable. He closed by thanking the council for appointing him to the work group and wishing the council “all the luck in the world.”

Why it matters: the Park Improvement Funding work group identified a sizable capital and replacement backlog for parks infrastructure. Brown’s testimony frames a Metropolitan Park District as the funding mechanism the panel judged most likely to fill that gap; council members indicated the MPD will be discussed at an upcoming retreat and in further council conversations.

Next steps: no council action was taken at the meeting on the MPD; council members said the item will be discussed further (the agenda item had been removed for this meeting but will be on a future agenda or retreat for deeper council discussion).

Ending: Council thanked Brown for his work on the task force and for his public comments.