Park Board's autonomy bid heads to court as city balks

Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board supporters say if City Hall gets its hands on parks, parkland will be auctioned to developers. City Hall warns that if the Park Board wins independence, it will lead to property taxes run amok.

With such contentious rhetoric from both sides, it's little wonder that lawyers for Park Board backers and City Council members will be meeting in court on Thursday.

After the council voted 11-2 Friday against putting a charter amendment for Park Board independence on the Nov. 3 ballot, the long history of tension between the Park Board and City Hall spilled over into the courthouse as parks supporters filed suit asking a judge to order the independence question onto the ballot.

Park Board supporters are seeking a system more like that operated by Three Rivers Park District, which has its own taxing powers and operates west metro suburban parks, mostly independently from county commissions.

In Minneapolis, the city Park Board still has to get the Board of Estimate and Taxation's approval for tax increases and borrowing.

The dispute over whether Minneapolis city parks are getting enough money dates at least as far back as the World War II years, according to one unpublished park history. Another chapter opened in 2000, when park commissioners sought a referendum to raise more money, only to be turned back by the then-mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, who made a deal to provide more parks money to avoid competition for pending referendums on school and library funding.

But the park bonanza eventually was derailed by a budget squeeze play of state aid cuts, soaring pension costs and Mayor R.T. Rybak's decision to put policing ahead of public works.

The issue seemed to abate when the elected heads of the Park Board and City Council suggested that the park proposal and another charter proposal be given a year's study.

But that sense of compromise evaporated when the Charter Commission forwarded to the fall ballot the third proposal, which would replace the current membership of the city's Board of Estimate and Taxation with City Council members. The board approves property taxation, borrows money and oversees audits. Because the current board makeup balances the votes of two council members, the mayor, two public members and one park commissioner, park interests felt that handing over the board's powers to the City Council amounted to a back-door budgetary takeover of parks.

Those fears boiled over on July 1, when the Charter Commission refused to advance to a referendum a charter proposal by Park Commissioner Scott Vreeland which would guarantee that the Park Board got a proportionate share of any tax increase or borrowing done by the city. The commission also rejected a separate request that the Park Board get a second seat on the Board of Estimate.

Later that night, without any advance public notice, the Park Board approved a petition campaign that asked voters to approve financial independence for the Park Board, with specific powers to be granted by the Legislature.

Charter commissioners criticized the Park Board for moving ahead without anything like the series of public meetings the Charter Commission held before voting on the three earlier charter proposals. Park commissioners argued that the 17,000 signatures required to put their proposal on the ballot amounted to a public vetting.

But the hyperbole has cut both ways, with council members arguing that property owners should fear a Park Board with unlimited taxing authority. In reality, local government entities operate under levy limits imposed by the Legislature.

Even the mostly independent Three Rivers Park District has a legislative limit on the percent of its tax base it can levy.

And there are safeguards against a sell-off of property if the City Council ever gained control over parks. It takes a super-majority of nine votes on the 13-member council to sell public land.

Regardless, after hearing from their attorneys that they can reject a ballot proposal that is unconstitutional or contrary to state law, all council members except Cam Gordon and Sandra Colvin Roy voted Friday to leave the Park Board independence question off the ballot.

So nearly three months into the year of study on the future of the park system, Vreeland and council President Barbara Johnson agreed Friday that the chill has deepened. And it's getting in the way of work they need to do.

Corbin Connell, a member of the charter commission, noted the dysfunctional relationship in July, chiding both sides: "There has to be priorities and you have to talk to each other."

But for the time being, the attorneys will do the talking.