Ramos Proposes Creating Open-Space, Park Fund

Surrounded by volunteer student park rangers, the president of the Newark Municipal Council Monday proposed asking city voters to approve a small tax that would provide $1.1 million in funding annually to maintain the city’s parks and to acquire open land for recreation purposes in Newark.

“Some of our parks are not in the best of shape. Some of our parks need reinvestment and renewal,” Anibal Ramos said during a press conference held at Jesse Allen Park in the Central Ward.

Ramos plans to introduce legislation at the municipal council meeting Wednesday that would authorize placing a question on the November ballot asking voters to approve a tax whose funds would be reserved solely for parks and open space in the city. The money could not be used for any other purpose, Ramos said.

The proposed open space fund, modelled on others already put in place by Essex County and hundreds of communities across New Jersey, including East Orange, would cost the owner of a property assessed at $200,000 just an additional $20 a year in taxes, Ramos said.

Ramos said he hopes to receive “unanimous support” for the proposal from the council Wednesday.

One supporter is Darrin Sharif, the Central Ward councilman, who said Monday that parks and green spaces provide a “subconscious primal” benefit for residents. 

“The great thing about this being on the ballot is that the people push yes, answer yes, to that question,” Sharif said.

Such open space initiatives have generally proved to very popular, given the low cost to taxpayers and the fact that the fund legally can only be used for their stated purpose. When Essex County’s open space trust fund appeared on the ballot more than a decade ago, it won overwhelming support from voters.

Scott D. Dvorak, of the Trust for Public Land, which has worked in Newark since the mid-1990s, put some  numbers to a reality Newarkers are painfully aware of -- relatively speaking, there’s little open space in Brick City.

Dvorak said communities should have about 10 acres of open space per 1,000 residents. Newark, meanwhile, has just three. Even the state’s second-largest city, nearby Jersey City, has more than Newark, about 6 acres per 1,000 people.