| Releases & Statements
Contact: Frank Sobrino, Press Secretary
O: (212) 669-4193
Good afternoon. Thank you for holding
this hearing.
I am here today not only as the Public
Advocate but as a former Parks Commissioner. I believe I can honestly
say that few understand better than I do the need to find new
sources of revenue to ensure the upkeep of our parks and facilities.
After all, when I was Commissioner my budget was cut by 30 percent.
But to impose membership fees that
stifle use of our recreation centers by New Yorkers of limited
means for the sake of a marginal boost in revenue—that is
simply unjustifiable.
And make no mistake: membership fees
do stifle attendance at city-run recreation facilities. At my
request, the Independent Budget Office analyzed changes in usage
resulting from the new fees instituted at most recreation centers
in 2003. The results are clear- cut:
After the fees were introduced, attendance
at 20 recreation centers fell by 13 percent, while membership
at five free centers soared by 23 percent.
Obviously, the prospect of a $50 to
$75 membership fee was enough to drive many New Yorkers away from
their neighborhood recreation centers. Now the city is targeting
the six centers that were exempted from the fees, centers located
in low-income neighborhoods in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn.
These are neighborhoods where residents are least likely to have
discretionary income to spend on recreation fees, meaning we are
likely to see another sharp drop in rec center attendance if the
new fees take effect.
These are also neighborhoods with
alarmingly high rates of health problems such as diabetes and
obesity.
According to the Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene, in Hunts Point and Mott Haven, where the Hunts
Point and St. Mary’s recreation centers are located, one
in three adults gets no physical activity, and one in four is
obese. The rate of heart disease is 45 percent higher than in
the city as a whole; diabetes two times higher.
In Central Brooklyn, where the Brownsville
and St. John’s recreation centers are located, one in three
adults gets no physical activity and one in three is obese. The
rate of heart disease is 30 percent higher than in the city as
a whole; diabetes two times higher.
In East Harlem, where the Thomas Jefferson
recreation center is located, one in four adults gets no physical
activity and one in three is obese. The rate of heart disease
is 5 percent higher than in the city as a whole; diabetes two
times higher.
On the Lower East Side, where the
Hamilton Fish recreation center is located, one in five adults
gets no physical activity and one in 10 is obese.
By making it more difficult to access
recreation and exercise precisely in those neighborhoods that
most need an increase in access, the administration is directly
contradicting Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to promote public
health in his second term.
The administration has made the argument
that people who pay fees make more regular use of the city’s
recreational facilities. As far as I’m concerned, New Yorkers
who view membership fees as a worthwhile motivational tool are
welcome to pay them in the form of a suggested donation. I am
more concerned about the New Yorkers who can’t afford to
pay the fees and therefore will lose the opportunity to improve
their health and fitness.
The administration has also argued
that imposing membership fees on these six centers is a matter
of fairness, that all city recreation centers should be subject
to the same policy. But is it really fair to expect low-income
neighborhoods with serious health problems and little access to
recreational facilities to take on the burden of a policy that
was bad to begin with?
The truth is, there is only one credible
reason for the city to charge these fees, and that’s to
raise money. As I said before, I am not indifferent to the challenge
of finding revenue to maintain and upgrade our parks and facilities.
But the revenue these membership fees will produce is negligible.
The Parks Department has projected
that the fees at these six centers will bring in $2 million in
2007. The IBO report I requested estimates that the actual revenue
will be less than $1 million. In either case, the revenue will
be far too minor in the context of an approximately $300 million
parks budget to justify the impact on low-income neighborhoods
with high rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
There are better ways to raise money
for our parks and rec centers. In a meeting with Commissioner
Benepe last week, I proposed that, instead of imposing mandatory
fees, the Parks Department take immediate steps under Section
18 of the City Administrative Code to gain corporate and community
sponsorships for its rec centers. In 2003, the City Council passed
legislation providing for an Adopt-A-Park program that also applies
to rec centers.
An aggressive Adopt-A-Rec-Center program
has several advantages over the mandatory fee policy. First, it
is likely to generate significantly greater revenue.
Companies like Time Warner, ING, Snapple,
and Starbucks have demonstrated their willingness to give hundreds
of thousands of dollars to improve conditions at neighborhood
green spaces like Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem and Herbert Von
King Park in Bedford-Stuyvesant. There is no reason that the recent
upsurge in corporate support for city parks could not be extended
to rec centers.
Mayor Bloomberg created NYC Marketing
specifically to raise funds to support city agencies through public-private
partnerships. A collaborative effort with the City Parks Foundation
to solicit corporate support for city rec centers would seem to
be an ideal project for NYC Marketing.
Second, sponsorship agreements are
treated as private grants under the law. Unlike membership fees,
which are deemed city money and therefore under the City Charter
must be deposited into the city’s general fund, donations
from corporate and community sponsors can be used directly by
the Parks Department for the improvement of its facilities. Put
simply, when New Yorkers pay membership fees to city rec centers,
the money doesn’t necessarily stay at those centers. When
companies agree to sponsor rec centers, the money stays with them.
Which leads me to the most important
difference between my proposal and the mandatory fee policy: Mandatory
fees discourage widespread usage of the city’s recreational
and exercise facilities. They exacerbate health problems in the
neighborhoods that need the most help. A well-executed Adopt-A-Rec-Center
program, on the other hand, would open up a world of possibilities
for promoting neighborhood usage.
Last October, a $60,000 promotional
campaign at Starbucks stores helped attract 7,000 people to volunteer
to clean up city parks as part of the semiannual “It’s
My Park! Day.” That was an increase of 3,000 people compared
to two years earlier. Imagine what could be accomplished if the
Parks Department were to aggressively seek out the same kind of
support for its recreation centers.
Imagine a successful Adopt-A-Rec-Center
program that could not only help improve public health and even
save lives in these six neighborhoods but also create an opportunity
to remove the mandatory fees that have driven down attendance
at the city’s other twenty centers.
Commissioner Benepe has proven himself
to be an astute and capable administrator of the city’s
parks and recreational facilities. I urge him to reconsider mandatory
fees and to imagine the possibilities for greater funding and
better public health raised by my alternative proposal.
Thank you.
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