Park Authority inequities harm vulnerable communities
By Lydia Lawrence
Lower-income and minority residents of Fairfax County are being shortchanged by the Park Authority, mostly due to the lack of funding.
In the wake of the controversy over Justice Park, the Fairfax NAACP has done a significant amount of research and investigation into the lack of equity in the park system.
Here are some of our key findings:
(1) Community parks are essential for providing recreational opportunities for the most vulnerable residents. These parks are often neglected, especially in our low-income communities. The Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) does not have the staff or resources to properly maintain and improve these parks.
(2) The natural resources within the county’s 24,000 acres of parkland are neglected, exacerbating the effects of heat islands, tree canopy loss, and stormwater runoff. Our historically disfavored communities often feel the effects of climate change most acutely and are the least able to recover from the effects of climate change.
(3) A large part of our FCPA system is not accessible to our most vulnerable neighbors. FCPA has provided scholarships for recreation centers for some of those who can’t afford to pay. But this funding is hardly enough to make all of FCPA’s fee-based services accessible to those who have limited income.
Community parks underfunded
FCPA has tried to address these issues in its latest budget proposal by requesting from the county government $5 million to create an equity program and $751,954 to invest in natural resource management.
Instead of granting FCPA’s requests, the county has proposed a fiscal year 2023 budget that ultimately takes more money away from FCPA.
The county’s advertised budget would allocate just $500,000 to the Park Authority for equity and just $50,000 for natural resource management.
Related story: Fairfax County forced Black families to vacate land for Justice Park
The $751,954 requested by FCPA for resource management would have paid for three additional ecologists, invasive plant management, replanting, staff vehicles, and chainsaws and other tools. The $50,000 for this program in the advertised budget won’t go very far in managing park resources.
While the Park Authority requested $5 million for scholarships for rec centers and other equity measures, the budget includes just $500,000 for an equity pilot program.
It’s surprising that the county would consider equity a pilot program when FCPA has been working on this since 2018.
While this budget meets a small fraction of what the Park Authority asked for, it actually robs FCPA of $50 million. FCPA receives funding through a bond every four years. The last park bond was approved by voters in 2020 for $100 million.
In this year’s budget proposal, park bonds would be shifted from a four-year to a six-year cycle. That means FCPA won’t receive any more bond money until 2026.
FCPA is limited to spending no more than $25 million on bond funds per year. Bond money can only be used for new projects, not maintenance.
Our research shows that Fairfax County spends significantly less on parks than other nearby jurisdictions, including Arlington, Loudoun, Prince William, and Montgomery County, Md. Yet, Fairfax County’s park system, with 24,000 acres, is much bigger than that of the other counties.
It’s amazing that just 0.6 percent of the Fairfax County budget goes to parks when we have such a large amount of parkland.
More than 60 percent of FCPA revenue comes from fees at rec centers, golf courses, and other fee-based park activities.
As a result, most park funds are spent on those facilities, while community parks that serve low-income neighborhoods are neglected.
The Park Authority also relies on millions of dollars in volunteer labor to maintain natural resources. Residents of affluent neighborhoods have more time to volunteer in the parks. As a result, parks in disadvantaged communities have less access to volunteer labor, so those parks deteriorate at a faster pace.
A safe place to play
In our discussions with residents of Culmore and other disadvantaged communities, we found safe, outdoor places for recreation are among their top priorities. That is especially true during the Covid pandemic.
Black and brown communities have fewer parks than White or affluent communities – and they feel the effects of climate change to a greater extent than their wealthier counterparts.
Related story: How the Park Authority’s increasing focus on parks-as-a-business is bad for us
The pandemic has made it clear that natural, green spaces filled with trees and other native vegetation are more important than ever to our residents’ mental and physical health. Native trees are essential to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases, manage and reduce stormwater runoff, support local wildlife, provide social and economic benefits, reduce energy costs, and more.
This is particularly acute and problematic in underserved communities, which are more vulnerable to the urban heat island effect.
Contact your supervisor
The 2023 budget isn’t a done deal. There’s still time to let the Board of Supervisors know how important community parks are for the health and wellbeing of our most vulnerable residents – and how important it is to create an equitable and well-funded park system.
Urge your supervisor to:
● Keep park bonds on a four-year schedule.
● Provide $751,954 for natural resources.
● Cover the FCPA’s request of $5 million for equity.
We’ve made it easy to contact your supervisor. Use this action alert to send them a letter, preferably before the public hearings on the budget.
The Board of Supervisors will hold hearings on the budget April 12, 13, and 14. The board will mark up the proposed budget on April 26 and will adopt a final budget for FY 2023 on May 10. The 2023 budget takes effect July 1.
Lydia Lawrence is the Fairfax NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Chair.
17 responses to “Park Authority inequities harm vulnerable communities”
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Why can’t parks ask those in more affluent neighborhoods to volunteer at underserved parks? Why can’t the FCPA put all park money in a pot and distribute it more equitably? We should put MORE money into less fortunate neighborhoods.
Thank you, Ms. Lawrence,
We need this kind of thorough, focused examination of social and environmental issues, to have better conversations that will bring us together for good quality of life for all. I found your article informative and energizing.
Disadvantaged communities have less access to volunteer labor, and they feel the effects of climate change more acutely? Maybe I should pay more in taxes. Perhaps then some of the state and county-supported disadvantaged could donate some of their time to maintain the parks. Goodness knows they’re using them on the weekends whenever I show up.
I will admit that the effects of climate change are significantly less-obvious three miles away in our middle-class community. Our HOA has even recently approved coal-burning generators, and we haven’t noticed much change in the temperature. They did stipulate, though, that if it gets warmer in May they might rescind their approval.
Thank you Ms. Lawrence for this well-informed article. The Board of Supervisors needs to put its money where its mouth is. They need to ACT NOW and fully fund the FCPAs FY23 Budget request in support of equity and sustainable natural resources management. Many FCPA Friends Groups donate real money to bring students from Title 1 schools to parks for high quality programming, but this volunteer funding is not nearly enough. Please contact your supervisor before April 12, 2022 and sign our petition in support of full funding for parks. https://www.change.org/p/fairfax-county-parks-budget-needs-your-help
Great synopsis of the budget situation for Fairfax County parks. I fully support more tax dollars for parks. They have been underfunded for far too long. I have often thought that the priority of the revenue fund over the general fund has caused the Park Authority to shift its mission to “making money.” That is not an equitable way to deliver a needed public service!
Climate change amazes me. On one hand it’s a threat to all of humanity with rising ocean levels and food insecurity, but on the other its effects can be mitigated simply by the redistribution of wealth via local park authorities. Well, that was easy.
Lol, where do you piece together that leap in logic?
Did you bother to read the article? Second of three key findings by the NAACP: “Our historically disfavored communities often feel the effects of climate change most acutely and are the least able to recover from the effects of climate change.” Redistributing wealth to mitigate the effects of climate change really isn’t much of a leap, is it? Glad to hear I made you LOL, though. Laughter is the best medicine.
Did you bother to read the article is my line, dammit! Kidding aside, the article states that disadvantaged communities may feel the burden of climate change more than others. There is no mention of mitigation of said effects of climate change, local or global, through the proposed direction of investing in non-fee based parks. You infer, incorrectly, that climate change can be mitigated through improvements to non-fee based parks because that fits the narrative of the comments you now choose to post on this blog. And I disagree. Gin is the best medicine.
After 30 years of steadily decreasing the proportion of general fund revenues that go to the parks in favor of a “self-fund” approach for FCPA, it’s time to rethink the funding model. There are plenty of pressures on our parks and natural resources today that weren’t as concerning back in 1988, when the park authority got about 3 percent of the overall general fund (Now it only gets 0.6 percent). those pressures include population increase (we’re now at 1.2 million); encroachment of habitat by invasive weeds; urbanization (fragmentation of landscape, polluted runoff, heat islands); more frequent and intense storms that cause flooding and damage; and tree loss caused by all of the above. If FCPA relies on a self-funding model, such is the case now, you end up having to raise RECenter membership rates, camp fees, etc. to help tackle all of these other challenges. (Voter bonds will pay for capital projects, but not other stuff). But if you increase the fees, you end up shortchanging the folks who cannot afford those RECenters and activities in the first place. So it’s time for the county and FCPA to run a metric on their metrics, to see if there’s a better, fairer budget model.
Let’s not blame the volunteers – let’s fund the parks dept and then hold it responsible for consistent maintenance of grounds and equipment at all parks across the county.
It’s futile to hold a group of nameless volunteers responsible for the condition of the parks. I don’t think we can expect all the parks in the county to be consistently well maintained if the County (or our neighbors) can blame the volunteer force for lack of performance. It seems plain that people want more for the parks than what a volunteer force can consistently deliver.
The blog keeps filtering my comments because I speak the painful truth. Under Penny Gross’s socialism bent, Mason’s quality of life continues to plummet compared to its neighboring communities. It’s an unfortunate reality that the more well healed communities are, those are the communities that will get better care of their parks than Mason. What FPA should be doing is getting the poor involved and educated on the environment and caring for our precious parks.
My message to Penny, you have created a district of distincly poor and rich neighborhoods while the middle class flees to better run government such as Loudon County. This reality has discouraged investment in new development that could help support our parks and the social services that continue to put a drain on the district’s limited tax base. Although, I am pleased to hear about the re-purposing of Skyline, another Mason District disaster without metro access. This was not Penny’s doing, it was more like the right bent bigots in the 1970s that ignorantly voted not to continue metro into our area. This is what happens when you let an ignorant majority make decisions that have broader impacts over time…..thank you Jerry Connelly. Until we improve Mason’s tax base we will continue to have this challenge and many more that this kind of dichotomy fosters.
The raising of our property taxes to sustain this mess will only continue to encourage the middle class and retirees to become refugees of greener pastures. That is not the answer, encouraging future vision that supports a better blend of business, retail, office, demographics, recreation and housing is what is needed. The district sorely needs a smarter, less biased, younger and more energized supervisor to lead this charge. Until this happens, we will be posting the same old comments on the Blog in the coming decade.
I grew up poor. I don’t recall anyone ever asking my parents for proof of income when we went for a walk.
Despite being in favor of better funding park systems – in Fairfax and elsewhere, the article left a lot to be desired in the way of facts and data.
“Residents of affluent neighborhoods have more time to volunteer in the parks. As a result, parks in disadvantaged communities have less access to volunteer labor, so those parks deteriorate at a faster pace.”
What is the citation/source for this assertion?
If minority communities utilize the parks in large numbers, why don’t they volunteer in the parks? I don’t believe it’s a lack of time. If it were, how would high levels of park usage be possible? A group can’t be using the parks so much that the parks are crowded and in bad repair while at the same time not have time to be in the parks. If at the park, why not develop more active volunteer programs? I grew up very poor and I volunteered a lot so that I could find a network of people willing to help me pursue educational and economic opportunities. A more robust minority volunteer program in the parks may not only help the parks, but provide value hands on skills and new social capital (a network) for disadvantaged communities if the program is well-designed.
(You can get more information on volunteerism, by race, sex, etc, here: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2003/08/art1full.pdf)
In any case, I don’t think volunteering is the answer, but the way the article wrote about this was specious at best.
The bigger issue is growing inequality and the saddening consequences of the prioritization of privatization of public goods that really took over U.S. policies in the 80s, which has led to very good social services for the rich and comparably poor social services for the poor.
To avoid absolute heartbreak when thinking of my country, I can’t believe that most Americans – regardless of race or class, really want to live in a society where inequality is evident and damaging. More pro-social behavior is needed all around!
I’m retired so I spend a lot of time in Mason District Park (MDP) with my dog Abby. Most of that time is spent on picking up litter from every area of the park. The number of glass bottles, plastic bottles, used condoms, styrofoam, individual snack bags, fast food bags and containers, used tissues, tires, bags of trash, dog poop, and tennis balls gets greater everyday. I’m 81 and my years are drawing nigh and I will grieve for MDP after I’m gone. Much of the problem stems from lack of education and outright laziness. After 20 years the FFPA was shamed into placing recycling bins next to the garbage cans. Do users of MDP put the recyclables into the blue bin, even though they’re next to the garbage cans? NO. 95% of the parks’ users are either Hispanic or Asian. Having traveled extensively in countries with those populations , it’s wherever they drop trash is where it stays. So how efficient are the recycling programs in those predominant neighborhoods? I would say lacking, since on any given day I can pickup anywhere from 20 to 85 plastic bottles. The FCPA makes picking up litter even worse by not having raccoon proof garbage cans and basically not enough cans. Recycling bins are either hit or are missing. The grass cutting season is beginning and the cutters do not pick up litter before mowing. Try picking up 50 shredded pieces of styrofoam or a shredded aluminum can. I asked penny Gross if the contract to mow required pickup before mowing and was advised to submit a FOIA request to FCPA. As for toilets there are 2 in MDP about a 1/2 Mile apart as the crow flies. In the winter, although it’s heated, the toilets near the tennis courts are locked. It’s disgusting to see excrement piled in the corner and the strong smell of urine (am I in France?). The park is a year round facility and as such all the toilets should also be. Tell a person in a wheel chair to get back in their vehicle and drive to the basketball court toilets. Many elderly people are at the mercy of their bowels, and when they grumble it’s time to sit not drive to the bb courts. I’m in the process of filing an accessibility action with the U.S Department of Justice over this issue. I’ve asked Penny gross to intervene, but I’ve heard nothing. I consistently vote NO on park bonds, since I don’t see where the money goes. As an example, look at the tennis courts in MDP. It looks like the courts were damaged by an earthquake. I end by pleading. Democrat, Republican, Independent or Socialist run against Penny and send her into retirement.
So, FCPA had a park renovation project ready to go with Justice Park, lots of money to spend, yay! It was killed by a nimby campaign and a misdirected Fairfax NAACP. The park plans would’ve greatly improved the park life of an underserved community of color, allowed for new visitors (parking) and expanded the footprint of Justice High School.