Unions and park advocates push council to restore cuts, baseline Playfair positions and fund '1% for parks'

Dozens of union leaders, environmental groups and community organizations used their allotted time during the parks committee hearing to press a single, clear ask: restore budget reductions, baseline the temporary Playfair/oneshot positions and move toward a recurring funding target equal to 1% of the city budget.

Union witnesses from DC37 told the committee that Parks relies heavily on oneshot and seasonal lines to staff core services — from lifeguards and PEP enforcement officers to rangers and maintenance crews — and that the annual churn harms retention and program continuity. “These positions are the backbone of parks,” Local 983 vice president Ralph Basely said in his testimony, and union leaders recommended converting essential oneshot roles to baseline status to avoid repeated annual layoffs.

Advocacy groups pressed the same message. Heather Lubov, executive director of City Parks Foundation, said the department has been “cut to the bone,” pointing to a four-year trajectory of reductions that advocates argue has undermined maintenance, programming and capital follow-through. Nonprofit and conservation witnesses — including representatives from the Trust for Public Land, Nature Conservancy and Prospect Park Alliance — urged an early, reliable funding commitment to support forestry, natural-area stewardship and the soon-to-launch urban forest plan; they said inconsistent oneshot funding has repeatedly disrupted forest-management efforts.

Community gardeners and GreenThumb partners demanded the restoration of a previously allocated $2.6 million for GreenThumb operations, asked for streamlined direct grant pilots for gardens and urged stronger, statutory protections for community gardens located on city land. Garden leaders described routine problems — rodent infestations, illegal dumping and inaccessible infrastructure — and asked the council to create a faster response stream (GetStuffClean) and fund ADA-access improvements so elderly and disabled gardeners can continue to participate.

The testimony session produced numerous concrete asks for the council: baseline roughly 276 Park Playfair/oneshot positions; restore GreenThumb funding ($2.6M); invest recurring money into forestry/natural-area staffing to implement the urban forest plan; and commit to moving Parks toward 1% of the overall city budget. Unions proposed project-labor agreement expansions and more training opportunities; conservancy partners requested $16M baseline support for natural-areas staff to sustain the Forest Management Framework.

The committee will weigh these requests during the executive budget process. Any restorations or baselining would need to be reflected in the council’s negotiations with the mayor’s office before the adopted budget.