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Forests and trees are great. The mapping is nice to have. And, the work of the Forestry Alliance must be appreciated. Indeed, there are stormwater and other costs we would incur without our forests. But, preparing for or otherwise leading the public on to believe that we’re able to acquire privately held plots of urban forests in our city’s present state of decay is fanciful unless our leaders have decided to further abandon their responsibilities along with any sense of priority.
To Councilor Bain’s point (by the way, observe how the other Democrat Councilors are pictured in the article. But, he –the only Republican– is not), perhaps someone should remind our councilors who have become central planners that they are living in Indianapolis in 2021 where we’ve gone from “World Class” to third rate. Crime in this city is abysmal. Our roads (already ~$1 billion in arrears) need many times the current level of funding to be considered adequate. The overall performance of Marion County public schools are a shameful disaster, which only guarantees more crime and lost opportunities in the future. Pike Township Schools in particular can’t even open their doors to students many days. We had to subsidize Elanco, which was already headquartered in Indiana, approximately $256,000 (all-in) per job just to stay in this state and move their headquarters to a blighted, brownfield adjacent to downtown. Aesthetic and conservation matters are worthy pursuits AFTER we stop killing each other, our schools open, and we begin funding our infrastructure, but not until then. Good grief!
Daniel, I agree with most of your comments and those things are more important, but taking care of our forests, trees, and maintaining parks deserves more funding. This can be done at the same time. If we don’t support environmental protection or growth there won’t be anything left when the money comes around. It will be too late.
Could Indy Parks inventory their land assets that are not forested or forested and high value and sell some to accrue money for strategic acquisition of forested land?
In short, maximize the portfolio.
If Indianapolis/Marion County taxpayers were not so “anti-tax,” we could have a separate tax (as many municipalities do for parks as well as for libraries and other public amenities) dedicated exclusively for land/forest acquisition, protection, and maintenance. If every household was taxed at just $1 per person per year, there would be nearly $1 million every year to support this need. It would be a constant and predictable source of revenue that inflicts less of an impact on a household than a monthly trip to Hardees or the corner liquor store.
Where is the Parks Alliance (formerly The Indianapolis Parks Foundation) in all of this? It was founded and has been successful over its history in raising private dollars for public parks. Surely, its leadership can generate interest in finding private dollars to purchase these lands. It can also likely entice some of the landowners to make a charitable gift through the Alliance. It has success in the nineties and early 2000s getting those gifts.