Lincoln Aldermen discuss revoking Ordinance 123 pertaining to the Lincoln Park District

 

[February 19, 2022] 

Agenda item number eight on the city of Lincoln Committee of the Whole agenda Tuesday night was for the revocation of Ordinance 123, originating from 1965. The ordinance would effectively relieve the Lincoln Park District of its responsibility to maintain four city owned parks; Postville Park, Ray White Park, Melrose Park and Allison Park.

In the past three years, the Lincoln Park district has visited the city three times, each under a different park district director starting with John Andrews who was an interim director, then by Director Abigail O’Brien and finally, last year by Director Becky Strait.

At each of the three visits the topic was the same, the LPD was requesting that the city of Lincoln turn over ownership of the four parks to the LPD. The reason for the request was so that the park district could apply for grants to do park improvements.

In the first two meetings, the city council appeared to be vaguely interested, but not willing to make a commitment. The concerns they expressed to Andrews and again to O’Brien was uncertainty whether the LPD could actually get the grants, questions about the types of improvements, and concerns that the LPD could sell the properties at a future date.

When Strait came to the meeting last year, she brought with her plans for improvements to be made at some of the parks, and again asked the city to relinquish ownership.

During that time, Kevin Bateman showed much concern over the LPD plans and said that he was not impressed with the state of Memorial Park which is owned and maintained by the park district. He said that Memorial Park was “not a diamond” to be shown as an example of what the park district was capable of doing. He noted that the park lacked amenities that visitors look for, such as bathrooms.

At that time, the council discussed perhaps giving over ownership of one park at a time to the LPD. The theory being that they could see what the park district actually did with the park once they owned it and then decide about future parks based on the LPD’s performance.

Strait said she would take that back to her board for further discussion. Nothing was heard after that, until just recently.
 

Tuesday night, City Attorney John Hoblit told the council that in 1965 the agreement had included a provision that the park district be permitted to collect taxes based on all the parks it maintained. The same ordinance then denied the city the right to tax on the same properties. Therefore the city collects no tax now for city park maintenance, but it could in the future.

Steve Parrott asked why the city should consider taking back the parks.

Mayor Tracy Welch said that ultimately, the park district is encouraging the city to do so, because the board had instructed Strait to tell the city that it would turn over all four parks or it could take them all back. He said it seemed to be an “all or nothing” situation where the park district was not interested in taking over the parks one at a time.

The council talked about how it would go about maintaining the parks. It was noted that Street Department Head Walt Landers had estimated that the city would need to purchase a truck and lawn care equipment plus possibly hire an extra employee. The initial cost for the city to take over the parks could be as much as $100,000.

On the other hand, Building and Zoning Officer Wes Woodhall said that the city could hire the work done for roughly $60 per park per mow. Bateman said there had been a conversation with someone who is no longer in business but used to do mowing. That person had indicated that the cost per mow would vary from park to park. That un-named person estimated Postville Park would cost $100 per mowing, Ray White and Melrose Parks would each cost $75 per time and Allison Park would cost $125.

Bateman said if the city figured mowing once per week at $400 for all four and for 52 weeks the cost would be around $20,000. He said obviously there would not be mowing 52 weeks a year, but budgeting accordingly would permit for rainy seasons where mowing was required more frequently as well as other clean up tasks at the parks such as tree maintenance.

Tony Zurkammer noted that the city provides mowing now for the Postville Courthouse and Treasurer Chuck Conzo added that the park on Eighth Street is also maintained by the city. Zurkammer asked if the estimate from Bateman included those two areas. He was told that the cost for those two parks are already budgeted and so no, they were not included in the estimated $20,000.

Parrott asked if the city took back the parks, “what do we gain?” Welch said first of all, the city would regain control of its own property, and could move forward with its own improvement plans if desired. Parrott asked if the city couldn’t do that anyway and still let the park district do the mowing and cleaning of the parks.

Hoefle said that the park district wanted all the parks, but his question to them had been “what have you done” with the parks thus far. The district had said they needed grants and for grants they needed ownership. Hoefle said that he felt like the city could apply for grants as well and do the improvements if the grants were won.

Welch said the city could do grants. He noted that one of the grants the LPD was talking about was the PARC grant. He had looked at the requirements for the grant and said that it was open to units of government so the city could apply for those.

It was also mentioned that the city could levy a tax for the improvement and maintenance of parks.

Wanda Lee Rohlfs considered the estimated budget, but said before she committed to taking over the parks, she’d like more concrete bids for budgeting.
 

Conzo also reminded the city that tax levies may only be established one time a year, in December. Therefore, if the city takes the parks this season, it cannot move forward with a levy until the end of 2022.

Parrott said he still didn’t quite understand why the city would want to take the parks back.

Bateman said it wasn’t a matter of the city wanting to take them back as much as it was a matter of not being able to reach an amicable agreement with the park district. He said that he, Hoefle, Welch and Landers had met with the LPD to discuss this and the park district was not willing to compromise. Bateman said the LPD had put it in writing that they wanted all or nothing.

Welch supported that comment, saying that the city representatives would like to have found a way to meet in the middle with the park district, but their board had decided it would be take all the parks or give them all back.

Zurkammer asked though if the city refused to revoke ordinance 123, then wouldn’t the park district be in a position where it had to keep the commitment.

Welch said that yes that was probably right, but the city doesn’t want to alienate the park district, it wants to be able to maintain a working relationship with the organization.

Bateman also mentioned that the city may not single out the parks on their asset list, but the fact is the land is owned and that means it adds to the city’s net worth.

Sam Downs said he felt like having the park district take care of the parks was like “free labor.” He wondered if the city couldn’t do the park improvements but still have the park district do the mowing. Welch said that the city has done improvements in the past under this agreement, and noted that there is currently a plan for a park pavilion at Postville Park in partnership with the LTEC Woods Class.
 

Discussion continued on the tax levy. Bateman said that a levy of $20,000 per year would not be significant compared to the overall tax bills of the county. But there was a question as to if the city would hold at $20,000 or would it tax an amount above that so as to implement the park improvements. The answer was yes, the city would have that right and should probably consider it.

The question also arose, if the park district was not taking care of those properties, would the levy by the park district be reduced? The question had been asked of the LPD and the implied answer had been no, they would not reduce the levy.

Rohlfs reiterated that she would like to have a more solid cost estimate before abolishing Ordinance 123. Bateman said he thought that was reasonable, even though he is pretty confident in the figure he presented.

It was agreed that the council would first seek a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the cost of maintaining the parks. Then it will move on to further discussing the revocation of Ordinance 123.

The RFP request will be placed on the voting agenda for the Tuesday, February 22 voting session.

During the conversation, Welch also mentioned that the Lincoln Memorial Hospital Community Health Collaborative is working to form a Logan County Parks Coalition. A meeting has been called for next week and Welch has been invited to represent the city of Lincoln.

[Nila Smith]