Parks Conservancy Seeks Ballot Initiative To Address Multi-Million Dollar Maintenance Backlog
90.5 WESA
The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy released a multi-year plan Monday to spend more than $50 million on maintaining, rehabilitating and operating Pittsburgh's 165 parks. However, the plan is contingent on the November passage of a ballot initiative to create a Parks Trust Fund.
The Conservancy surveyed 3,400 Pittsburghers about their feelings on the city's parks and what changes they'd like to see. Nearly all respondents -- 95 percent -- said the parks need more funding and that at least half of Pittsburgh's parks are in fair or poor condition.
Jayne Miller, president and CEO of the Parks Conservancy, said these results confirmed what those in the organization already believed.
"We know from the data that the city and the Conservancy has painstakingly gone through, this system has a minimum of a $400 million capital backlog," Miller said. "And we're short in our staffing needs across the parks system by over 70 percent."