Thanks to S for sending this to me. Obviously, NAC is not on the mailing list.
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Dear 1si Members,
In the spirit of keeping you informed of issues of concern to the business community, we wanted you to be aware that there has been a special City Council meeting called to vote on the breakup of the NAFC Parks Department. Unfortunately, this action would be counter to legislative positions taken by our organization in that it will likely result in less efficient local government.
Our 2013 Legislative Agenda includes the need to streamline current local government so that administrative efficiencies can be achieved by the expansion, standardization and coordination of collaborative purchasing. Vetted by the business members of our advocacy council and approved by our Board of Directors, this Legislative Agenda has been distributed to the 800+ business investors of our organization.
If you would like to attend the meeting or talk with City Council members to discourage the separation, the meeting takes place tonight, October 18, 2012 at 7:15 pm at the City County Building in downtown New Albany .
Sincerely,
Wendy Dant Chesser
President and CEO
How many meetings has she encouraged people to attend in order to get county leaders to properly fund the Parks Department?
ReplyDeleteI have mailed her to ask precisely this question.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't the "most efficient" local government be a merged City and County?
ReplyDeleteI believe merger is on 1Si's tote board. I await their explanation as to how merger achieves anything approximating home rule, as opposed to no-tax/low-tax rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteEfficiency and streamlining equate to lessened public representation and spending except in those cases in which 1Si asks for local representation and spending on behalf of their clients.
ReplyDeleteI'll reiterate: The more New Albany does to free itself from the 1si model, the better life and our collective futures will be. To begin a more positive, sustainable path, one can almost look at their self-serving, class-based platform and just do the opposite.
Can anyone count how many parks departments there are in Clark County?
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ReplyDeleteI just checked the 50 largest cities in the United States - all have one Parks Department.
ReplyDeleteRegarding "jurisdiction" over city and a county parks, the NYC Parks & Recreation Department somehow manages to put politics aside and oversee the park facilities for New York City, including all five counties that comprise New York City.
Their success most likely happens through co-operation.
NYC Parks & Recreation is the steward of approximately 29,000 acres of land — 14 percent of New York City — including more than 5,000 individual properties ranging from Coney Island Beach and Central Park to community gardens and Greenstreets.
They operate more than 800 athletic fields and nearly 1,000 playgrounds, 550 tennis courts, 66 public pools, 48 recreational facilities, 17 nature centers, 13 golf courses, and 14 miles of beaches.
They care for 1,200 monuments and 23 historic house museums. They also look after 650,000 street trees, and two million more in parks.
Do we have really extra tax dollars to spend for duplication of effort?
ReplyDeleteIn your example it isn't specific on whether there is one or more taxing bodies chipping in so they can service the entire area. What we have here is two different levels of government with two sets of priorities and one side doesn't seem to care whether they have paid their fair share or not.
ReplyDeleteIn a perfect world there would be a Floyd County Parks department, fully funded by Floyd County Government that paid for everything in Floyd County.
Right now New Albany citizens are taxed twice and receiving very little in return.
Several members of the County Council seem to be unaware that they represent the citizens that live within the city limits.
Pretty funny reading about this group complaining about not getting a fair return on their tax dollars.
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