Everyone knows the more things change, the more they stay the same – unless things really, really change.
Hmmm. Has that just happened regarding the county’s historically underfunded parks and recreation system?
Background is required, and we begin by scrolling back to 2011, when High Ridge businessman Brian Haskins joined the Jefferson County Parks Foundation to help raise money for more and better county parks.
In 2015, Haskins and other parks-minded people asked the Jefferson County Council to put a 1/2-cent park sales tax on the August 2016 ballot.
Nope.
Then-County Executive Ken Waller and County Council members said they wanted more information before deciding whether to call for a public vote, leading Haskins and several other park volunteers to quit in disgust.
“I decided I needed a seat at the table,” Haskins told me last week.
So, in 2018, he ran for County Council against veteran council member Don Bickowski of District 1. On a pro-parks platform, Haskins beat Bickowski 2,672 votes to 1,495.
Haskins sat down at his first council meeting Jan. 14, 2019. Almost immediately, he stumped for County Council approval for an April 2020 public vote on a 3/8-cent countywide sales tax for parks.
Another no-go.
Haskins found he was on the wrong side of a 4-3 majority.
The opposers said they needed more information and voted for a 90-day delay before bringing the matter to a council vote. Oh, yes, and how about doing a study?
But the council majority never funded a study and never brought the discussion back. In the meantime, the chance for an April 2020 parks tax vote expired.
Haskins and anybody else paying attention recognized the word “study” for what it really meant – “fuhgeddaboutit.”
So, Haskins decided he needed a majority on the council.
He hoped for a time that the state Attorney General’s Office might decide District 7’s Jim Terry (one of the four who voted to table the park measure) was ineligible to serve on the council because of his membership on other public service boards. Nope, the AG said Jim could stay.
Maybe Haskins crossed his fingers that a change would occur in the 2020 County Council elections. No dice. Haskins’ District 6 ally, Councilman Dan Stallman, retained his seat, but so did two council members on the other side of the parks debate, District 2’s Renee Reuter and District 4’s Charles Groeteke.
But then matters took a turn.
In May, Terry resigned from the council and in June, Vicky James was chosen to take his place.
How that came about could serve as a case study for a Local Politics 101 lecture (subtitled, How to Sidestep a Fuhgeddaboutit).
Council chairman Phil Hendrickson (he’s the one who suggested the study) said council members would choose among the eight applicants to replace Terry by rank-choice voting, with points awarded on that basis. It’s the way the council has made some previous appointments, but not all.
Haskins declared publicly he didn’t like that idea, and when it came time to vote, he and the two others in his park bloc – Stallman and District 5’s Tracey Perry – voted only for James, giving no points to anyone else.
It was enough to win the seat for James, who, coincidentally (?), was ranked last among eight candidates by Reuter and Groeteke.
This is the same James who is well known in the community, put in long service on the Northwest R-1 Board of Education and came in second to Terry for a County Council seat in 2014. Given that resume, a dead-last ranking seems odd, unless you’re desperately trying to avoid a flip in the council majority.
On July 12, the newly seated James voted with Haskins, Stallman and Perry to seek placement on the July 26 council agenda of a proposal calling for an April 2022 public vote on a 3/8-cent parks sales tax. Against were Hendrickson and Groeteke, with Reuter absent. County Executive Dennis Gannon confirmed he would put the proposal on the agenda.
The Leader went to press before the July 26 vote; if the proposal passed, second and third approvals would be required at a later meeting, so there’s uncertainty on how it all will turn out.
But it sure looks like Haskins is taking a solid step toward his dream. I couldn’t reach James to ask how she stands on the parks proposal, but there’s a reason she was the top candidate for some and a dead-last choice for others.
Haskins said this time, the sales tax proposal would exempt cities from charging the tax (most of them already have dedicated park taxes) and their residents from voting on it.
Even so, it will be challenging to win voter approval in 2022.
County voters have said no twice, in 1993 and 1999, to increasing parks funding from the original 3-cent property tax levy, which was set in 1965.
But Haskins points to his own election as evidence that voters will choose to improve their quality of life.
“Nobody doubted why I was running,” he said. “We are so far behind other counties. We have only nine (county) parks and 150 acres open to the public, with only two parks with running water and electric.
“This is going to be a chance to be a positive thing for the county and the community, and I’m optimistic about it.”
And as to that Local Politics 101 lecture:
“Jim’s gone; now we have Vicky,” Haskins said coyly.
