Worthy initiative or money grab?

Late last week, caution signs were neatly lined up across the wide expanse of soccer fields at DeGarmo Park in north Chico.

Tom Lando—board chairman of the Chico Area Recreation and Park District, the special district that owns and manages the park—explained why: Every winter, storms flood the field, making them unusable for play.

But it didn't stop the green space from being exceptionally busy for a weekday morning. Several parents looked on as their kids clambered about the playground. An elderly couple walked hand-in-hand along a trail and two women in athletic gear chatted in the parking lot.

CARD has big things in store for DeGarmo, which opened about 12 years ago. Part of the plans involve upgrading the soccer fields to synthetic turf and repurposing them as multi-use fields. But at the park’s entrance, on The Esplanade just past Eaton Road, there’s a much grander addition in store: a 20,000-square-foot community center and gymnasium with two to four courts, and an aquatics facility across another 1.3 acres. Right now, that’s all undeveloped terrain.

There’s a catch, however. According to Lando, the district doesn’t have the funds to cover such additions and upgrades. That’s why the board has turned to the voters this year, placing Measure A on the March 3 primary ballot. It asks Chicoans to consider approving an $85 parcel tax that would increase each year based on average annual percentage changes in the consumer price index, and be in effect in perpetuity (unless the voters decide to organize an effort to terminate it).

The measure has to earn a yes from two-thirds of voters to pass, and would generate approximately $3 million per year for the agency’s coffers. CARD would place the money into a separate fund, and go out for a roughly $36 million bond to pay for those new projects and upgrades, according to General Manager Ann Willmann. Nearly $2 million would go toward debt service each year, with the remaining $1 million going toward security, maintenance and operations. As a trade-off, CARD’s current assessment districts would dissolve.

While proponents argue that the tax is necessary to maintain and improve parks and public safety, detractors point to CARD’s debts, insisting that its $2 million unfunded pension liability is what’s driving the ballot measure. CARD should have employees pick up more of their pension costs, not ask the voters to shell out more money, they say.

CARD has an approximately $9 million annual budget—roughly half of its income comes from property taxes that include redevelopment monies. The rest primarily comes from program fees and facility rentals. The district manages 12 parks across Chico, including Community Park, Hooker Oak Park, Wildwood Park and Sycamore Field, and provides recreational programs at six additional locations, including the Dorothy F. Johnson Center, Chico Creek Nature Center and Humboldt Avenue Skate Park.

If Measure A is approved, CARD has assembled quite the list of priorities for the additional revenue. This includes park expansions and completions; bathroom, field and playground repairs and upgrades; accessibility improvements, per the Americans with Disabilities Act; and added security, lighting and parking.

“To me, the measure is critical to moving Chico in a positive direction,” Lando said. “Without the measure, we have enough to operate CARD, we have our normal programs, but we can’t really build facilities.”

According to the ballot language, CARD’s allotment of county property tax has not kept up with inflation rates. This, coupled with the support it receives from user fees, grants and donations, has not generated enough revenue to improve and maintain district facilities and build new projects.

Lando argues that, in particular, Chico is “woefully inadequate” when it comes to providing enough swim and gymnasium space. Local schools cannot hold swim meets in Chico because its current pools aren’t up to standards and are in need of substantial work. And recently, the board was approached by local pickleball enthusiasts in search of places to practice and play.

“I think we’re way behind on our ability to recreate and relax in this community,” Lando said.

For Juanita Sumner—who runs a blog called Chico Taxpayers Association that focuses on halting “excessive taxation by incompetent government”—a tax isn’t the panacea for CARD’s problems. It’s a way for the board to free up money to pay down its pension obligations, she insists.

She understands the importance of recreation: During summers in the early 1990s, Sumner used to bike to Pleasant Valley Pool almost every day with her family, she said. Her sons were avid swimmers, and they loved that neighborhood pool.

But what Sumner has seen since, she said, is CARD facilities degrade or get shut down (e.g., Shapiro Pool, which was closed in 2016 due to significant renovation costs) at the same time that the district approved higher salaries and benefits. That’s one of the reasons she’s against Measure A.

Willmann said CARD employees have picked up more pension costs every year since her appointment in 2015, and that is something the district will continue to push for moving forward. Last year, CARD made a roughly $740,000 payment toward its pension debt, put $700,000 into a pension reserve, and adopted a plan increasing its annual payments.

“We recognize that that is what we need to do in order to be fiscally responsible,” Willmann said. “With or without this revenue measure, we will continue in that vein and we have a plan to pay our pension liability.”

Sumner said that while CARD employees are paying more now, “it’s such a tiny amount,” and “really the lion’s share [of costs are] the pensions and the salaries.”

CARD has maintained that the tax will go into a separate fund and be managed by an oversight committee, with annual reports on projects and expenses. According to the measure’s text, the district “intends to use funds collected … to help fund and finance all of the projects listed above, unless the Board determines in any given year that changes in state or federal funding make doing so infeasible or inadvisable.”

To Sumner, “that sounds like an out.”

Lando, however, was adamant that the funds will be spent as promised.

“None of this money, none of this money will go to pay for those pensions. It’s going to go for these facilities,” he said. “I believe CARD’s done a wonderful job and served the community well. We haven’t kept up. The community’s grown. … I just hope the community can appreciate the need. Yes, it is a tax, but it’s well worth it.”