More than $100m needed for parks, rec and waterfront

September 29, 2011 12:45 pm by Lance Knobel

Some of the parks and recreation issues shown on Tuesday night: closed stairs at Remillard Park, drainage problems at Ohlone dog park, inaccessible restrooms at the Marina, and deteriorating basketball courts at San Pablo Park

At a special session of the Berkeley City Council Tuesday night, the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront department presented $100.5 million in infrastructure capital needs.

“I’m one of those who has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the resources we’re going to have to come up with one way or another,” said councilmember Max Anderson, in response to the presentation.

However daunting the $100 million worth of requirements discussed on Tuesday seemed, City Manager Phil Kamlarz said that the total capital requirement for the city’s responsibilities was likely to be around $500 million. The City Council will have a series of workshops over the next three months to review all the needs, followed by a citizen poll in the first half of 2012 to help provide guidance on priorities for the city. Kamlarz told the council that every $1 million in a bond measure means a cost of roughly $2 a year for the average homeowner in Berkeley.

Since the narrow failure of the pools bond measure in 2010, pools advocates have been regrouping to find a way to reopen Willard Pool and finance much-needed improvements to the other pools. But in Tuesday night’s presentation, the capital requirement for pools was at best the third largest amount.

Parks & Rec Director William Rogers

According to the presentation by William Rogers, director of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront, Berkeley’s parks and recreation facilities require $28 million and the Marina $27 million. The pools bond proposal was for $22.5 million. Community centers require a further $14 million and the city’s residential camps — Echo Lake, Tuolomne and Cazadero — a further $9 million.

“Our parks infrastructure has begun to seriously deteriorate,” Rogers said. He cited basketball and tennis courts in serious disrepair, inadequate drainage in many parks, deteriorating play structures, inefficient and ineffective lighting (where it exists), and damaged walkways. One of the few bright spots in the presentation was Rogers’ description of the King and West Campus pools — the city’s only two pools once the warm pool closes this December — as in “relatively good shape”.

In the public comments that followed the staff presentation, speakers concentrated on the importance of reviving a pools bond measure. According to Robert Collier, Co-Chair of the Berkeley Pools Campaign, the soft costs in the June 2010 bond measure were too high and the needed funding could have been reduced from $22.6 million to $15 million (the Berkeley Pools Campaign letter to the City Council can be seen here).

Many of the public comments were about the importance of the warm pool, which is located at Berkeley High School and is scheduled to close in December. The city is planning to use the Downtown Y’s warm pools instead, but warm pool supporters have consistently claimed that the Y is an unacceptable alternative.

“I keep hearing that the Y won’t work for the warm water pool,” said Councilmember Laurie Capitelli. “I’d like to push that further to understand it.”

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  • Berkeleyborn134

    Always difficult to maintain public infrastructure when you have to pay bloated pensions and salaries to keep a bureaucracy alive that can’t even do the job it is supposed to….

  • GPO

    Just the other day, Berkeleyside profiled a report which suggested that if the bureaucrats were paid at a comparable rate to other local cities, Berkeley could save $60-$100 ANNUALLY!

    Consider also that our soon to retire city manager could easily collect his quarter million, 110% pension for 25 years which, by itself works out to $6,250,000.  How many parks, how many pools, how many roads could be refurbished for that alone?  Multiply that number by the 500 + city employees clearing over $100,000 per year and you are talking serious money.

    As others have opined before, it would be one thing if these bloated compensation packages really attracted the best and the brightest, giving us excellent and well-functioning city services.  Quite the opposite is true.

  • Anonymous

    Re: pools costs and overhead, more information is on the Berkeley Pools Campaign website, http://www.berkeleypools.org. The city needs to resolve this problem before it draws up a 2012 bond measure for pools, parks, waterfront, and/or other pressing city projects.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    No government employee should ever receive a pension that is higher than their highest average salary.

    What sense does it make to pay someone more to not do their job than you pay them to do it?

  • Bob

     ”very $1 million in a bond measure means a cost of roughly $2 a year for the average homeowner”
    Dear renters and students .. take note.  Homeowners are tired of paying the bills.  Down with rent control.

  • Lori

    If council member Laurie Capitelli  doesn’t understand why the Y won’t work for the warm water pool people after reading this letter by the Disabilities commission:http://berkeleypools.typepad.com/files/commission-on-disability.pdf  then he will never understand. Does he want to? I have serious doubts.
    I am a warm water swimmer who used to have a Y membership at a reduced rate, adjusted for my income. It was still expensive, but if it had worked I would have found a way to keep my membership. What occurred was that after using the Y, the next day I was filled with pain and ill. When I went to my doctor, she explained what the cold water does which makes me sick and filled with pain, and yes, even 88 degrees is too cold for me. Most pools users are like I am. You may wonder why only 2 degrees can make a such a huge difference. Our co-chair explained it this way: If your child has a temp of 101 degrees, you know something is wrong and should be watched closely. If the temp goes up to 103 degrees, the problem needs to be addressed immediately.  We have the medical community behind us, the Disability Commission, The PTA, the Commission on Aging, and the PEOPLE OF BERKELEY– shown by over 60% of the voters in an election that was doomed to fail. Shouldn’t that be enough. Also, at the meeting ( and you might want to watch the short video http://berkeley.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=809 ) to see that very few council wanted this on the ballot. This is an election year for some city council members. How could they want this on the ballot in 2010 and suddenly change their minds?

  • Lori

    My landlord, broke it down to me, about roughly what my rather high rent was paying for. Part of it was the taxes that he pays. It is quite selfish to assume that if you don’t own a home you don’t deserve libraries, schools, pools and recreation, etc. Often renters save money ( those cities that have rent control) to buy a home. Often the disabled cannot afford to buy a home. Would you prefer they lived in the streets? Then we would have to spend more money on shelters and, and, the list goes on. Please have some humanity. Thanks.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V6KQTJGAQAZXMNEIKG5LM2IHZU Tizzielish

    Renters pay real estate taxes, not their landlords. Duh. Where do so many homeowners get the lame brained belief that renters don’t pay property taxes?!  Landlords pass along property taxes to renters. Duh. And, since non-homestead property is usually taxed at higher rates, renters often pay higher taxes than “homeowners”.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V6KQTJGAQAZXMNEIKG5LM2IHZU Tizzielish

    Council member Laurie Capitelli has never shown empathy for anyone who is not prosperous.  Any any ‘empathy’ he does show is merely political calculation to keep his office, which enriches him with connections and power. He’s a politician for the landed gentry, not anyone needing an affordable public amenity.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    Tizzie, when is the last time that you got a property tax bill in the mail, or that your rent-controlled apartment bill went up solely because of a new bond measure?

    While you are completely correct in pointing out that the initial price one pays when they rent a new rent controlled property definitely reflects local taxes and fees, the rent on such properties does not go up in accordance with any new taxes/fees that are imposed on homeowners.

  • Anonymous

    I will not vote for a pool measure that shackles the warm pool to the rest of the pools.  And many of us feel that way.

  • Bruce Love

    This is not quite correct: While you are completely correct in pointing out that the initial price one pays when they rent a new rent controlled property definitely reflects local taxes and fees, the rent on such properties does not go up in accordance with any new taxes/fees that are imposed on homeowners.

    The Annual General Adjustment in established rents is based on a fixed formula: 65% of the CPI or something like that.  On stabilized units, landlords are presumptively entitled to at least the AGA assuming they haven’t violated any regulations.

    Landlords are also entitled to petition for “individual adjustments” due to special circumstances.   One example of a special circumstance is when new parcel taxes would deprive a landlord of a fair rate of return.   In this case, the rent adjustments for the units contemplated in the petition can be raised to cover the expense.

    Now, there is some buffering there.  Tenants may be less likely to experience “sticker shock” on a new parcel tax even though they are, ultimately on the hook for it.  Conversely, homeowners staring at their tax bill in horror may be less likely to contemplate that bill against the financial benefits that accrue to them, like City works that help to support the value of their equity in the property.

    The rent stabilization and eviction for good cause ordinance recognizes and implements housing rights for established tenants just as Prop 13 recognizes and implements housing rights for homeowners.   The individual adjustment procedures of the ordinance are, among other things, a mechanism to fairly apportion the burdens of parcel taxes while weighing them against other benefits that accrue to the landlord.

  • berkeleyhigh1999

    don’t start this again. Renters do pay taxes through rent. and berkeley rent is MUCH higher than neighboring oakland.

  • Charles_Siegel

    “his office, which enriches him with connections and power.”

    Laurie seemed to be doing quite well as a realtor and occasional developer before he was elected to the City Council.  I think that if he cared primarily about money and power, he would still be spending all his time on the real estate business. 

    I have always gotten the impression that Laurie cares about creating a better city.  Even his development on Hearst Ave seemed to please him largely because it created such an attractive place.

    I myself would be miserable as a councilmember, because the immense amount of work you have to do gives you so little power to shape the final decision.  But I guess some people enjoy sitting through meetings that would bore me to death if I had to stay until the end.

  • Maureen Burke

    The city needs to operate from the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number in the most efficient way possible. The city hall is unusable, culverts are collapsing, and parks in under-served areas that service thousands of kids are crumbling. Surely those projects deserve to be funded over others. I sure hope the city relies on a professional needs assessment instead of being swayed by a small but persistent and vocal group of people who have been claiming for over a decade that they will die if they don’t get a pool that’s 92 degrees instead of using the existing 88 degree pool at the Y. Imagine what the paraplegics we’ve created in Iraq would think of that sense of entitlement. I’d like to hear from any doctor who would approve spending money on a proposed therapeutic warm pool (4 degrees hotter than an existing one) for 50 people over spending money on a crumbling playground for 500 kids threatened with diabetes. We can’t do both. We need a sensible prioritization of projects because there isn’t enough money for everything. Everyone is tapped out–renters, homeowners, landlords–everyone–except maybe some city employees. No way this town can afford a $500 million bond measure on top of the recent $200 million+ school bond measure (that never did bother to provide a prioritized needs assessment and plopped our school district into the dubious category of highest debt per student district in the state). There are limits and we’ve reached them and not every project can be funded.

  • Lori

    I’ll excuse the word shackles try to answer this to the best of my ability. That was always the intention. The warm pool had a bond at the school that was passed in 2000, but never used. 
    Right before Dona Spring died, we tried to get it on the November ballot with no success. Had that happened we most likely would have won, and then the rest of the pools could have been placed on another ballot. It might have even won in 2010. But what happened was that the mayor OR a council member, ( again, right after Dona Spring died)  I think it may have been Laurie Capitelli, decided to do a pools study and took 500,000 from warm pool money ( which had been set aside much earlier by Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring) to study ALL the pools. The study was not much use, that I can see, and I attended all the neighborhood pool meetings, except they left out one pool– you guessed it, the warm pool. After spending so much money and time, I believe the study more of less ended up in the round file. So, that’s the story. I’m sorry you feel this way about the warm pool, which has so many programs, teaches children to swim, has the Melon Dash program for adults who are afraid to swim ( which stops the cycle of families who can’t swim– and are at risk for drowning.) I am asking you not only to have some humanity here, but realize that the warm pool has at least 12 programs, that cannot happen at any other pool  and will have to be discontinued. Thanks for listening.

  • Lori

    We are persistent, but no means small in number. Last count when a petition was signed I believe over 700 people signed it, and that was years ago. We get new referrals from the medical community each week. We get vets who need to use our pool. I have collected 5 signatures from my doctors alone, urging the city to have a new warm pool.And that is just one person. The medical community is behind us all the way. One doctor, wrote a letter explaining why obese people need the warm pool. One, pointed out that it is the only thing that helps people with chronic pain, and other prescriptions have been written for cancer survivors, and the list continues. With the cut in medicare, this type of therapy has been eliminated.  Because of a school bond measure that passed, it doesn’t mean that the warm pool shouldn’t exist. I am going to ask you for a little humanity here. I understand that this city needs so much for our children, parents, disabled, seniors, parents of disabled children, so please don’t cut the one place that addresses all these needs.
      Thanks,

  • libraterian

    Maureen, I have no idea who you are, but you’re an incredibly valuable asset to our city.

  • libraterian

    Let’s support two medical benefits at once: Support a warm water pool through taxing our medical marijuana megastores.

  • Bob

    That’s because Berkeley is a more desirable place to live and closer to the university, not because renters are carrying their share of the tax burden.

    Renters don’t pay taxes, it’s as simple as that.   Taxes are one part of the overall expense picture for property owners participating in rental market.  Rent control restricts their ability to increase rents.

    Once I ran into a signature gatherer at a table in front of Berkeley Bowl – he had two clipboards;  one for an initiative that would reduce the votes required for new bonds (paid for by parcel taxes) for schools from 2/3 to 1/2.  The other one was for an initiative to greatly strengthen the power of the rent control ordinances.  I just about flipped his table into the parking lot.

  • Bruce Love

    I think this is might be slightly garbled:

    I think it may have been Laurie Capitelli, decided to do a pools study
    and took 500,000 from warm pool money ( which had been set aside much
    earlier by Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring) to study ALL the pools.

    I think you mean the Berkeley Pools Master plan put together by the Pools Task Force.   According to the plan itself, the task force was created July 22, 2008 (nine days after Dona Spring’s death) and was funded with $300,000 by a vote of council.

    The task force master plan provided the basis for the failed Measure C.

  • Lori

    It was introduced at the city council and I believe Laurie Capitelli wants to take credit for introducing this plan. Yes, at first it was 300,000 that was used from the Warm Pool fund. I was at city council that night, and we all yelled, Wait, that’s Warm Pool money ( to no avail ). Then the “experts” that were hired needed about 200,000 more. While it seems that the task force master plan provided the basis for measure C, there were so many inaccuracies, both statistical, and plans provided ( like water slides, lily pads,) even as we pointed out what we already knew: we couldn’t afford these things, and wanted the basics. The task force master plan came out of many meetings which only emulated the Brown Act  The bond was poorly written and costs were highly inflated.
      Thanks, Bruce, for your comment.

  • Maureen Burke

    “Because of a school bond measure that passed, it doesn’t mean that the warm pool shouldn’t exist.”

    It does if you want public money for your pet project. The BUSD Measure I of $212 million reduces the total debt capacity of the City of Berkeley. The document entitled ‘Mechanics of a Bond Sale Program:  Debt Capacity and Affordability” explains how overlapping debt affects a city’s ability to finance capital projects. It points out:  “Limited resources demand tough choices as to how and what to debt finance. Debt needs to be linked to a thorough capital planning process and the overall operating budget.”
    http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/cdiac/seminars/20090430/session1.pdf

    This warm pool controversy has already cost Berkeley residents a loss of desperately needed classrooms at BHS, classrooms we’ve already paid $19.2 million for and will now pay for twice with Measure I funds. Tens of thousands of high school students have been stuffed into copy rooms, hallways and overcrowded classrooms for the past decade because warm pool advocates got in the way of those classrooms getting built. Too bad no humanity was shown to our high school community by warm pool advocates.

    The Albany warm pool will be operational soon, providing a second therapeutic pool to area residents. Very few communities have access to even one warm pool at any temperature, but only in Berkeley have I heard so much outcry from so few on the necessity of not only a warm pool, but one that’s above 84 degrees. If there are so many backers for a duplicate warm pool in Berkeley, then they should be able to generate enough donations to finance it privately.

  • Rich

    Infrastructure has been neglected around CA ever since proposition 13 past in 1978. Unlike the schools who
    can get a bond passed with 55% of the vote. All other projects require the difficult two thirds super-vote. Most
    of the bonds past recently have not concerned the disabled and elderly. the warm pool was denied a place
    on the nov 2008 ballot and given the low turn out  jun 2010 ballot which proved impossible. It is a crying shame
    that Berkeley is down to two public pools from four.  The Y is too expensive for many of us that is why public
    pools exist. many of us do not realize you are only one car accident or illness away from desperately needing a
    92 degree warm pool which at least a quarter of us need when we are over 60. the warm pool would have
    many more patrons if it were open 70 hours not just 25. The Betty Wright  92 degree pool in Palo Alto is a significant revenue producer which the limited hours of the current warm pool  prevents. please let us be a
    community that cares for the disabled and elderly which recent bond issues have not demonstrated.
          

  • Lori

    There is no Albany Warm Pool. They said it would be a Therapeutic Instructional Warm Pool, which many from Albany voted yes, because of this. However, the temp. is only planned to be 83 degrees. I don’t know how this happened and have read the wording of the bond. That would have solved our problem. If classrooms were so important at the BUSD, and I agree that they are, why did they build a competition water polo pool about 4 years ago ( not certain of the date, which the public can’t use when they are not using it )?  The Warm Pool never got in the way of building these classrooms. There was room in the building to save the warm pool, and build desperately needed classrooms, as a was proven by a Charrette that was filed with the school. The Pool Steering committee, including many warm pool people urged voters to vote for measure I, even though they knew that would be the end of the warm pool. 
      One more thing, although this is not directed to Maureen. The city often may look to Berkeleyside and the city council members who engage in polling in their emails, but many in Berkeley don’t even have a computer, especially the poorer sections, including the elderly, disabled, etc.. A computer is not a priority in families where children need the bare essentials of life. 

  • warm pool user

    RE: “I keep hearing that the Y won’t work for the warm water pool,” said Councilmember Laurie Capitelli. “I’d like to push that further to understand it.”

    It is simple – the Y pool is too small, too shallow, too cold, and has too limited hours even if the other things didn’t make it useless to the majority of the folks that need the therapuetic benefits of the 92-degree pool.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    Hey, I like that idea!

    Finally, someone who has an answer for the question of where to get the money that’s something other than “From someone else’s pocket.”

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    While you may be technically correct, that’s not how it works in the real world here in Berkeley. As a long-time renter you should know that Tom.

  • Bruce Love

    Um, in what sense is a tax on medical marijuana not “from someone else’s pocket”?

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    Well, to be honest I didn’t see the “medical” and thought libraterian was talking about legalizing marijuana for recreational use and taxing the recreational sale of the product. In that case, you’d be taxing a luxury recreational drug that was a nonessential purchase instead of taxing something that is considered a basic human right like housing (parcel tax).

  • Dave W.

     I spent 9 months at Walter Reed Hospital with spinal injures. The therapeutic pool there was 87 degrees and it worked for everyone. I try not to be a bitter person, but I have had it with the warm pool fanatics who have done so much harm to so many families with their selfish focus on only their own needs.

    When my oldest daughter was a freshman at Berkeley High, Building B burned down and the campus lost 26 classrooms. I figured when I voted for the bond measure that fall I would see the new classroom get built by the time she graduated. The raison d’etre of that bond measure was to replace Building B.

    Now my youngest daughter graduated this year and still–no new classrooms. It made my children’s high school experiences fraught with difficulty. They had many problems chasing down teachers if they had a question after class, since the teachers had to move from classroom to classroom. I won’t even bother to describe learning conditions when 40 kids are stuck in a theater lobby.

    The warm pool people stopped the demolition of the old gym that houses the warm pool, property that is on the campus of the high school, where the classrooms were to be built. Offering to add a few classrooms to a new warm pool building in that location was ridiculous (not least because the warm pool users had no claim to that school district property). The high school needs at least 30 classrooms if we want to provide the high school kids and their teachers with a functioning campus. Enough pandering to special interest groups. Our school board and the last superintendent were perfect examples of spinelessness in the face of such groups. The obstructive tactics of the warm pool crowd has already cost city residents over $20 million, since the money for the classrooms has already been spent and millions have been spent on the temporary classrooms since acquired. And what have we gotten for their obstructive tactics? Nothing except heartburn and lost opportunities. I find it hard to believe that none of my children got to enjoy the new classrooms I will now be paying for twice for 50 years.

    I encourage everyone to vote against any city bond measure that includes any project that does not meet a critical need for a large population of the city, and that most certainly includes a warm pool when one already exists and two will shortly.

    I still cannot believe after 11 years that Building B has not yet been replaced. What kind of city is this? Other bond issuers have been sued for much smaller infractions. The warm pool people did quite a job on us and they should never be rewarded for that type of behavior with their own specialized pool that serves a small sliver of our city residents. If warm pools heated to 92 degrees were a critical medical need, then every community would have one and very few do. We are lucky to have the Y pool at 88 degrees, which is warmer than the VA pool that rehabilitated me.