De Blasio Still Wants Conservancies to Share Money With Poorer Parks

[hrmjustin]

JILL COLVIN

Call him Mayor Robin Hood–for parks at least.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and his new parks commissioner today threw their weight behind the idea of getting wealthy, privately-funded parks conservancies to help subsidize parks with less green–but stopped short of endorsing making such an arrangement mandatory.

State Senator Daniel Squadron–who was in attendance at today’s announcement–has proposed controversial legislation that would require big-money nonprofits, like the Central Park Conservancy, to donate twenty percent of their contributions to a “Neighborhood Parks Alliance,” which would then redistribute the money to underfunded parks, often clustered in the outer boroughs. The proposal has been met with fury from some parks advocates, who have questioned the legality of a potential mandate.

Mr. de Blasio endorsed the proposal as a mayoral candidate, but today insisted that he and his team had not made up their minds and would work with the city’s conservancies to come up with a plan for addressing what he described as unacceptable inequities in parks funding.

http://politicker.com/2014/03/de-blasio-still-wants-conservancies-to-share-money-with-poorer-parks/

[hrmjustin]

1. De Blasio backs away from a parks redistribution idea

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/03/8542514/de-blasio-backs-away-parks-redistribution-idea