April 11, 2025
Honorable Mayor Mahan, Vice Mayor Foley, Council members Kamei, Campos, Salas, Cohen, Ortiz, Doan, Candelas, and Casey
RE: Park Budget Study Session April 15, 2025
The mission of Yes on San Jose Parks is to empower and mentor the San Jose community to engage and learn about our park system for a healthy, thriving city, which enhances the quality of life for all San Jose residents.
San Jose's parks play a significant role in driving economic development, fostering city vibrancy, and attracting new residents and businesses. Parks are a core service identified in the City’s Charter and an essential amenity that is fundamental to creating the City’s identity, desirability, and attractiveness. Parks can be leveraged as a tool to foster attachment and belonging to place--critically important to a stable population and economy.
San Jose’s parks help businesses recruit new hires by offering healthy, attractive, and collaborative environments that align with the values of modern Gen Z and Millennial workers.
These spaces can enhance employee satisfaction, improve well-being, and make companies located in San Jose more competitive when it comes to attracting top talent.
San Jose’s park system has suffered severe personnel cuts during each recession and has never fully recovered despite adding more parks. Parks are maintained to a lower standard than in 2000 and they stand in sharp contrast to the quality of parks found in key competitive technology hub cities. The infrastructure backlog continues to grow and contributes to maintenance problems. No park bond or other funding measure has been offered to citizens since 2000. Meanwhile fee cuts have been implemented and land values from 2017 serve as the basis of fees while many other tech intense cities through the country raise their park fees annually or bi-annually.
PRNS rations its park maintenance interventions to focus on areas with lower health indices and poor park maintenance scores—allowing small problems in other parks to grow. There is insufficient staffing to coordinate all of the volunteers and corporate partners who want to step up and help--creating frustration and disengagement.
The park system’s major repairs are funded through a patchwork system of Construction and Conveyances taxes and fees charged on residential developers. 1 The underlying design of these
funding systems contribute to continuing inequities of access and amenities, primarily within areas of low health index and communities of color.
The current funding system is not sustainable. The City must develop a long-term strategy to equitably fund its park maintenance and failing infrastructure and openly discuss these problems and possible solutions comprehensively with communities throughout the city—both with residents and commercial groups. In the interim, a short-term improvement would be to fund additional coordinators for volunteer labor in the park system.
We stand ready to help the City to communicate the park system’s needs, the institutionalized difficulties with the current park funding methods and a menu of strategies.
Sincerely,
/s/
Jean Dresden
Interim Executive Director
1 Park Trust fund s derive from enabling legislation includeing the Quimby Act and AB 1600 -Fee Mitigation Act .
San Jose District 1 Leadership Group
The Honorable Matt Mahan, Mayor of San José
and Members of the City Council
via email, sent
re: Council Study Session Park Maintenance and Operational Funding
Dear Mayor and Councilmembers,
Protect our Parks. Please keep funding for our parks at no less than the current level to ensure maintenance is maintained. Quality of life in these times is paramount to the health and well-being of each individual resident in the City of San Jose.
District 1 Leadership Group (D1LG) represents more than 30 neighborhoods and community-based organizations and has a membership of more than 60 neighborhood leaders. D1LG provides a forum for the ongoing development of our community and its residents, and advocates for district interests with our council member and the City of San José.
Parks are important to us in the community! Parks are the heart of the community, where outdoors we can go and play with our kids, meet neighbors, enjoy life. Parks enhance our quality of life if you live in a single-family residence or more importantly if you live in a residential high rise or affordable housing, residents need parks to be able to enjoy the outdoors.
Our parks need to be maintained. There is a significant backlog of needed maintenance. For example, in District 1, Rainbow park needs maintenance in the native plant garden, in the new Payne Avenue Friendship Park there are several trees and bushes dying, and F.M. Santana park is in need of updating Further, volunteers assist with maintenance of the parks. We ask that volunteer coordinator levels remain as currently staffed.
We understand there is a budget shortfall. In previous years budget cuts have reduced funding for our parks. People want our parks, playgrounds, trails, and other facilities clean and well-maintained. We are asking that funding for parks be maintained at no less than he current level or above.
Funding park maintenance produces positive tangible results that improve the quality of life for our community.
Protect Our Parks!
San Jose District 1 Leadership Group
Steve Ling, Chair Gary Cunningham, Vice Chair
Jerry Giles, Secretary Betty Kabanek, Treasurer
Doris Livezey, Member at Large
Cc: City Manager, PRNS Director, City Clerk,
April 14, 2025
Dear Councilmember Casey:
San José’s parks are a vital part of what makes our city great. Over the past 20 years our population has grown to nearly 1 million residents and the park acreage has increased approximately 20%. But personnel in the Parks Department is down, as is the commitment to the funds necessary to maintain and improve our parks.
As a lifelong resident of San José, I urge you to consider the Key Actions Items listed in the Parks Maintenance and Capital Funding document at the Council Study Session on Parks.
I wholeheartedly support the Key Action Items including:
• Launch an education and engagement campaign to better understand community perspectives and priorities for San José parks.
• Secure critical funding to maintain new and existing parks through a potential ballot measure in 2026.
• Develop a Park Master Plan that integrates capital projects with ongoing maintenance strategies, updates policies, and prioritizes identifying resources and funding.
• Modify policies to allow more flexibility in distributing revenue from park development fees citywide, enabling investment where it is most needed.
The 200+ neighborhood parks, 10 regional parks and the 65+ miles of trails make San José healthier, more connected, and more resilient.
Thank you,
Lynne Steele