Park Ponds Again Cut into Open Space Funds to Preserve the Mountainside

ParkPonds Funded with Open Space Funds

Read it and weep. Or, as one El Paso conservationist put it, "something to make your blood boil."

Open space in El Paso is funded by 10% of your stormwater fee. Precious mountainside land could be preserved with that money as long as it has a stormwater function. That's not hard to imagine as water rushing down the mountainside is stormwater. Increasingly, that money is being depleted by park ponds with "grass-covered athletic fields, a landscaped perimeter, picnic tables, park benches and a tree-lined walking path."

Nothing wrong with those amenities. But the money should come from Parks and Recreation and not open space!

Is this a good time to approach this City Council (or T-Rex) and ask that P&R pay for the amenities and not open space funds. Hell no. The ponds with their greenery are pork to them to offer the folks in their districts.

Is this the way it is done in other cities? Hell no. However, it should make us the envy of Van Horn, the standard Cortney Niland has set for us.

[If you receive elpasonaturally by email, you may not see the embedded document. Please go to www.elpasonaturally.blogspot.com to see it, read it and weep. Your blood will boil.]