an accidental tourist of a mayor and a taxpayer funded checkbook

Interestingly enough for some reason I have never heard anyone in Cincinnati complain about funding for parks. In spite of that when I heard about the new Charter Amendment to fund parks I thought "awesome!" who doesn't love parks. But the more I heard about the amendment the more ominous it began to sound. I was planning to post about it anyhow when I came across a breakdown of the amendment and what it implied from Ohioans for Taxed Constituents

Article VIII “AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY CHARTER OF CINCINNATI TO ENSURE A SUSTAINABLE AND VIBRANT CINCINNATI PARK BOARD SYSTEM. ”

The first concept that voters and media need to understand is the difference between the Capital and the Operating Budget of the City of Cincinnati. This tax levy will raise money for Capital expenditures only and will NOT include a single penny for day to day operations of these new facilities or their day to day maintenance.
This levy would create the means to buy more park land and build on current Cincinnati Park land, but not give a single penny for the day to day normal operation of the park property even though increasing the number of buildings and facilities would increase the operation costs of the Cincinnati Parks.
The proposed Article would create an unsustainable situation which could even lead to the need to sell off Cincinnati Park land and facilities to pay for the operations of the other Park properties.
The second last paragraph of the proposed Charter Amendment contains a condition that is not guaranteed to any other Department in the City and comes with no way to pay for it. The 2nd last paragraph guarantees that, despite anything that is happening in the City that the Cincinnati Park Board would continue to get at least $2.3 million for its Capital Budget from the whole Cincinnati Capital Budget that all of the City Departments compete with each other for: including roads, police, fire, recreation, health and human services.
Besides tying the next City Government to the debt and unsound decisions made by the previous Administration, this Charter Amendment reduces the power of City Council and blurs the line between the Executive and Legislative Branches by the clause in the last paragraph of the Charter Amendment.

The most worry some potion of the ammendment is this in Section 9

(c) The remaining seventy-five percent (75%) of levy revenue shall be made available to the board of park commissioners to be spent in accordance with a parks capital levy program recommended by the mayor and approved by board of park commissioners.

We would be giving the mayor of Cincinnati a taxpayer funded checkbook forever. Future mayors and councils will be paying these off these expenditures with their hands tied for years to come.
You still want to vote yes just because you support the current mayor? Here is another reason to vote no on it. Say I run against the promise breaker and win. Guess what I'm doing. The entire streetcar route is getting turned into a parkway for streetcars, pedestrians and bikes only.
I'm voting NO.
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