City may seek private funds for parks

SOUTH PORTLAND — In an attempt to defray the cost of park maintenance in South Portland, the City Council is considering the creation of an endowment program funded by private donations.

No formal vote was taken on the topic at the council’s most recent workshop session, but City Manager Jim Gailey said afterward that he would press on based on the apparent council consensus, which backed a concept presented by Councilor Tom Blake.

Blake first raised the issue in September when the city authorized $37,718 in taxpayer funds to clean the decade-old Liberty Ship Memorial in Bug Light Park. That project was scaled back from an initial $70,000 estimate. A trust fund set up for maintenance of the memorial, donated by the widow of a former liberty shipyard worked, had just $25,000 available.

Blake noted that since the 1970s, South Portland had inherited many parks and memorials, often without much, if anything at all, given for ongoing maintenance, creating a cumulative drain on resources. Examples, he said, include Wilkinson Park, Hinckley Park, Spring Point Shoreway, the Greenbelt Trail, Bug Light Park, the Redbank Air Disaster Memorial and the Mill Creek Park Service Memorial. Blake also pointed to a vacant waterfront lot on Elm Street, given two years ago as a tax write-off for the owner, with which the city has yet to do a thing.

“There is no doubt that these donations and acquisitions are a tremendous addition to the community,” said Blake. “But, historically, adequate funding has not been attached to the gifts.

“Now, it’s tough to tell people when taxes are going up and people don’t have jobs that we want to open up a new park, or just maintain one we have, and we’re going to raise your taxes to do it,” said Blake.

Given that the Liberty Ship Memorial will require a paint job every five or six years, Blake hopes former yard workers might make tax-deductible donations, similar to the $25,000 already on hand. Such gifts, Blake suggested, would continue to give in perpetuity, with only interest used toward maintenance of the memorial.

“If we could get a $1 million or $2 million endowment going, years down the road we could have a wealth of recreational assets in the city that maintain themselves only on the interest from the endowments,” said Blake.

Otherwise, he said, if the bulk of funding comes out of taxes, “we just won’t have the money.” Already, the memorial has been allowed to languish far longer than it should have, Blake said, and that pattern of neglect is likely to continue absent of a marked improvement in the economy.

All councilors backed the plan, suggesting any endowment could be extended to maintenance of all parks and memorials in the city, possibly with its own oversight board.

“It would be nice if we had an endowment for all of the little donations we take in over time,” said Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis. “This is an idea that really gets the wheels moving. There are all sorts of ways this could go.”

But talk of different governing structures and mission statements will do no good if talking is all that gets done, councilors said.

“This is an idea whose time has come,” said Councilor Maxine Beecher. “Certainly, Hinckley Park is in dire need of huge amounts of help. I’m also not sure what step one is, but I’d like to not leave here tonight without some step one decided.

“Talk is nice, it just doesn’t buy too many apples,” said Beecher. “Once you put a step in motion, you have to follow it through.”

Gailey said he would solicit bids from consultants on how to set up endowment funds. So long as he says below the $15,000 limit set in city ordinance, he will not need to return to the council to authorize that spending, Gailey said. However, the issue will likely return to a future agenda for action, which could include adopting a recommendation or hiring a fundraising consultant.

‘We would love to partner with the city to try and make this work,” said Carter Scott, president of the South Portland Land Trust.

However, not everyone thinks using private money to maintain public land is a good idea.

Strathmore Road resident Jaime Schwartz said he would be “a happy donor” to a parks endowment, but he cautioned against using it as a crutch.

“I won’t say that our taxes aren’t high enough, but I think we get a very good bang for the buck,” he said. “Given the bargain we get, for the services we get, let’s all be careful of something like this becoming a substitute for leadership.

“A fund like this can turn into an excuse for not doing anything,” said Schwartz. “The key is that it stay an ancillary fund. It’s our reasonability as citizens to support our parks.”