Regional parks meeting cancelled – -lack of interest cited

A regional parks meeting, called by the Thurston County Commissioners, has been cancelled due to lack of attendance by local elected officials.

County Commissioners had called a meeting, Tuesday evening,  of all city council members in Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater as well as Yelm and Tenino, for the purpose of assessing interest in creating a Metropolitan Parks District.

The parks district as suggested by the commissioners would encompass all of Thurston County.   The law establishing parks districts allows the collection of additional property taxes to fund aquisition, development and maintenance and operations of parks.

Commissioners said the money could be used for regional parks such as the Isthmus and LBA Woods Park as examples of the money’s use.

When commissioners were informed that many of the city council members would be unable to attend, they cancelled the meeting.

While lack of interest may have been the reason stated – – I suspect that those elected officials outside of Olympia, weren’t full of trust that the commissioners would allocate the funds in the best way.

The City of Olympia is currently looking at creating its own Metropolitan Parks District and is having trouble convincing the public that it will spend the money wisely.  I suspect that same feeling holds true on the larger scale.