Rose Garden Resident

Letters & Opinions

Speak Out

Outsourcing city's park
upkeep is a good idea

As a resident who has lived in the Rose Garden neighborhood for 20 years, I support Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio's pilot proposal to use the competitive bid process to cover park maintenance at the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden.

Being a past president of the Rose Garden Neighborhood Preservation Association and a former director of the Santa Clara County Rose Society, I have a deep commitment to this park. These groups lobbied hard to have the park designated a San Jose historic landmark, and the last thing I'd want is for this park to get in worse shape than it is.

Some say privatization would increase costs, reduce service quality and lead to even further deferred maintenance. I disagree, as do countless experts. Studies by Cornell University, The National Council for Public-Private Partnerships and a recent publication by Professor Savas of City University of New York titled "Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships in Phoenix" have shown many successes. What's particularly interesting in Sava's study, landscape maintenance was one of the more effective endeavors. In addition, Elaine Davis, senior research fellow of the Washington Policy Center, writes privatization of parks maintenance "has contributed not only to cost savings, but to a stronger sense of community and a greater satisfaction with community assets and programs." Clearly it's worth a try.

Here's a couple important items that have not been well reported about the pilot proposal, or have been misrepresented: Any contractor with the city must, by law, pay the city's prevailing wage. This makes me feel good. Workers deserve a good wage. And no city parks workers will be laid off. That's another plus to this plan.

San Jose is in a budget crunch. We have dollar problems and nickels to spend. Oliverio has hit the ground running on a possible method to provide better services to the citizens of San Jose using the funds we have available. I'm glad he has chosen this historic landmark. It is in sad shape.

Though there may be other ideas on how to solve the parks budget shortfalls, those are much further down the road. Our neighborhood would like to try this pilot program for 12 months to benefit all those that enjoy this regional park.

Change is hard. But that's what we'd like to see in San Jose. And we are willing to give this pilot program a try for 12 months and at the conclusion, evaluate its success. It has worked elsewhere, it could work in San Jose.

Terry Reilly

Rose Garden