EDITORIAL
Maintaining our parks is a basic city function

In the City Council's hunt for money to pay for park maintenance, chairman Donovan Dela Cruz is floating the idea of naming city parks after sponsors.

Some balk at the notion while others say it would make little difference if city parks suddenly bear the names of corporate benefactors.

Regardless, it is unfortunate that we're scrambling to pay for such an essential city service.

Elected officials understandably feel hemmed in by fiscal woes. The budget is already under strain from the need to play catch-up on deferred sewer repairs and other maintenance work.

But upkeep at city parks has been patchy for years. And most taxpayers would agree that their dollars are well-spent in keeping community parks clean and safe, which should be among the city's fiscal priorities and clearly one of its primary functions.

It's good to think "out of the box," particularly during tight fiscal times. But commercialization of city parks has little appeal and would not provide the stable revenue source needed to maintain our parks.

There's likely some middle ground here. There might be room for corporate sponsorship of community events that would benefit our parks, or for small signposts such as those along highways, declaring that "this park was cleaned by" some company or other.

However, these ideas should be viewed as a supplemental funding source.

The new city administration rightly frames our need for services as "need to have" versus "nice to have." City parks are a "need to have" and deserve sustained support.

Correction: Donovan Dela Cruz's name was misspelled in an previous version of this editorial.