Many city council meetings are full of boring minutiae: zoning issues, liquor licenses, talking through budgets and small changes, things of that nature. But every once in a while, a conversation happens that is truly critical to the future of a city, and this Tuesday represented one of them.
The Protect and Preserve Scottsdale Task Force was assigned the job of figuring out what to do with the expiring sales tax that has helped keep Scottsdale a world class city: a 0.2% sales tax to manage the upkeep of the parks and recreational areas in the city as well as upkeep for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.
The Task Force has come to a very positive conclusion: that it could actually reduce this tax to 0.15% and maintain all of the services that we have come to enjoy and take advantage of. This new reduced tax would be in place for an additional 30 years, at which point before its expiration it would be reviewed again to see if it is still necessary in its current state.
A small portion of these tax revenues (less than a quarter) can be used for debt service for debt accrued while making improvements to parks and recreation services. After that, about half of the revenue would go to park improvement needs with an emphasis on older parks, and the rest split between Preserve maintenance and protection, citywide park maintenance needs, fire fuel mitigation and rescue, and the police park ranger unit. No slush funds or nebulous spending, all of it spelled out with relative precision in the task force’s report.
This Tuesday the larger City Council reviewed and discussed the recommendations from the task force; after discussion, the motion to move forward with the task force’s recommendations passed with a 5-2 vote. Voting against it were Councilmembers Barry Graham and Kathy Littlefield. Littlefield seemed more to object to the mechanics of funding it, whereas Graham objected to a study group not being formed as per his wishes, as well as somewhat vague talk about questioning the need for the spending in the future.
We should consider ourselves thankful to be in a city such as Scottsdale. Many municipalities look for reasons to raise taxes in order to utilize the revenue for their own pet projects, vanity projects, or to satisfy special interests. Here we look for ways to reduce taxes without negatively impacting services, which is precisely how governance should act. I find myself disappointed that Littlefield and Graham felt the need to object for reasons that seemed more reactionary than policy-based, but am thankful that it passed easily nonetheless.