Parks & reformation

The case for busting up, not consolidating, Tulsa’s parks system

At the moment, Mayor Dewey Bartlett and a group of citizen volunteers from Tulsa Leadership Vision (TLV)—a private citizen’s posse with some capable, insightful folks—are busily rethinking parks services in T-Town. Consolidating city and county services looks to have a big role in their talks. The impulse to merge the organizations comes not just from the mayor and the TLV cadre, but also from a strategic recommendation proposed in the 2010 Tulsa Parks Master Plan. (Currently, the city spends more than $18 million annually on parks services, while Tulsa County spends a little under $8.5 million.)

But the TLV group isn’t exactly a hotbed of diversity. It doesn’t include kids, for example, who are key stakeholders in the future of Tulsa parks. And although the group includes some really progressive, able folks, doesn’t include representatives from all the “tribes” and neighborhoods in town. How could this happen in a community that is rhetorically committed to diversity?

Good things could still come from the group’s work, and they have hired consulting gurus who might scope out some interesting options. But the bias toward “stapling” all area parks together is problematic. Supposedly, there are a batch of deficiencies and loopy cost structures in play at City Parks that might yield some savings with an integration of city and county parks units.

Part of the danger of a consolidation path for Tulsa parks springs from prospects for impairing already low responsiveness. Might a combined city/county parks unit create a more insular, bureaucratic organization? Is a parks services operation managed by an obscure joint city/county entity likely to be more or less responsive to neighborhood-level concerns, aspirations and needs?

Presumably, one of the reasons city officials and TLV representatives are interested in consolidating park operations is to capture more property tax revenues—money available to Tulsa County but, for the most part, not to the city. This is admirable, but is it likely to really work? And is it our best avenue to a better-funded, more dynamic parks system? 

The biggest recent parks controversy centered on the future of a handful of parks in north Tulsa—the proposed demolition of community centers at Springdale Park, Ben Hill Park and B.C. Franklin Park.  All were marked for destruction after being shuttered for almost a decade. But an animated group of area residents demanded that the dilapidated north-side facilities be renovated and opened anew. Recently, community activist Vanessa Hall Harper and others connected to the neighborhood association for the area in play successfully negotiated with City Parks chief Lucy Dolman and others to modify an earlier list of proposed new amenities for the B.C. Franklin park facility. The list was approved by the parks board on Sept. 9.

Going smaller

We live in an era of radical decentralization sparked by powerful new technologies and an empowered, “do your own thing” attitude. Tiny groups of people can now do what previously required a room full of operatives.

So why not do something wild, something radical? Why not break up the city’s park system and parcel out the staffing and budget associated with our over-centralized park regime. To neighborhood associations and cross-neighborhood regional governing boards, heavily guided by citizens and staffed by a careful dispersal of existing Parks and Recreation staff. The key ingredients are savvy info tech, tightly crafted dual oversight and audit processes, cross-trained parks workers with a tiny, central parks staff at City Hall, and willpower to weather what might be a rocky transition.  Some specialty operations—golf courses, for example—wouldn’t be amenable to this breakout model, but this decentralized approach might produce a wonderfully varied, highly responsive park system that everyone could be proud of.

A funding “adventure”

Obviously, one of the prime rationales for a consolidated city/county parks model is potential cost savings: eliminating duplicate staff, and excessive overhead, pushing supply costs and maintenance outlays down, etc. Nothing wrong with trying to secure savings and reduce overhead. But creating a behemoth parks unit might destroy any prospect for crafting a truly responsive outfit. If we need additional revenues—Tulsa ranks pretty poorly in park spending nationally—we should think wild and look at novel avenues for pulling in additional funding.

How about creating a handful of revenue-generating “adventure” projects—for example, securing (say, with a private operator) one of the new surf/wave-generating machines that have produced so much excitement in various parts of the country? Todd Woody, a writer for The Atlantic and Quartz, opined in December:

“With a mix of hope and hype, the $7 billion surf industry is embracing wave parks as a way to grow a flat-lining business. Kids in Kansas and Qatar could become real surfers, not just boardshorts-wearing wannabes. Pro surfing executives, meanwhile, are pushing surf parks as predictable, television-friendly venues to stage competitions as they lobby to make surfing an Olympic sport.”

Another tangible breakaway project would be to secure a bike velodrome—an all-weather indoor bike “super-path” that could cater to professionals and amateurs alike. A city-backed velodrome project could run on a sliding fee schedule that would generate necessary revenues while remaining viable for modest-income families. Some market analysis would be required to see if an operation like a velodrome could be sustained in Tulsa, but this gambit is an example of the kind of revenue-generating project that could make a decentralized system work.

Finding the capital to start these “adventure” projects is no small challenge, but funding might be done via social improvement bonds—a mechanism that allows affluent people and foundations to invest in projects that have small real returns but big social impacts.

So why not try a “smaller is better,” decentralized approach to parks services—one that would empower the people? 

Where’s the chutzpah? We were a bold burg once. Can we be one again?