public money & deficit of green space

ever wonder how to influence the spending of public money on community projects? as a recent addition to the denny park steering committee (aka: friends of denny park), i am consistently impressed with the ability of a small group of volunteers to make a difference. by the time i arrived on the scene, this team had already developed design and planning for the overhaul of denny park. the tricky bit now is finding money to pay the upgrades.
on behalf of the FoDP, i attended seattle city council's public hearing for the 2008 budget. my task was to request approval of the mayor's proposed $7m "orphaned parks fund," some of which we hope will be allocated to our "re-envisioning" Denny Park plan.

i was number 80 on a list of 90-ish people signed up to speak to the council members. there were a couple other park-oriented requests for funds, most interesting among them was the lake union pedestrian/bicycle loop. the SLU park project seems to already have a lot of dough but they were asking for funds (or thanking for funds already received -- hard to tell the difference sometimes) to complete the walking/biking/running path around the lake. it was promoted as the "next green lake".
fortunately there is free wireless at city hall. while waiting to speak, i was able to search the seattle.gov website and found the orphaned park fund budget blurb (pasted below). i wanted to appear somewhat informed when giving my pitch. around 8:30pm, my two minutes finally arrived. our needs seemed familiar to the council members and the pitch appeared to be well received. in any case, i don't think i embarrassed anyone on my team.
after listening to the other requests for funding, all of which seemed legitimate and most of which seemed necessary, it will be interesting to see how the process will play out.

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here's the orphan parks blurb from the mayor's budget proposal:

"ORPHANED PARKS WISH FUND”

In his proposed budget, Mayor Greg Nickels added approximately $7 million to the Pro Parks Levy Opportunity Fund for park development. Called the “Orphaned Parks Wish Fund,” this one-time fund source will be offered to neighborhood groups to apply for funds to improve their neighborhood parks. The Mayor also proposes that the General Fund pay to continue programs already funded by the Pro Parks Levy, which will end in 2008.

The $7 million fund is a new one-time program to improve and develop parks that have been only partially funded with Levy resources, or that have had difficulty in securing community funding. Applicants for funding will go through the existing Pro Parks Levy Opportunity Fund competitive process.

The Pro Parks Levy – formally known as the “Neighborhood Parks, Green Spaces, Trails and Zoo Levy Lid – was approved by Seattle voters in 2000 and expires in 2009. The Levy provided eight years of funding for various parks-related projects and programs. About $9 million would need to be found starting in 2009 if all of these programs were continued. The Mayor has proposed shifting this cost to the General fund in 2007 (except for the Zoo portion that will come from the County Parks Levy). This builds these programs into the base General Fund budget to allow continued funding after the Levy expires. Shifting this cost to the General Fund also allows the 2008 Levy money to be used for the $7 million”Orphaned Parks Wish Fund.”