Editorial: Plan for Fairmount Park

A plan to streamline oversight of the city's 9,200-acre Fairmount Park system finally appears ready to take root and then bloom.

Mayor Nutter and City Council prepared the ground by adding $2.4 million to the budget of the perennially underfunded park system, with a further pledge to boost spending by nearly 50 percent over the next five years.

The city's largest park friends' group, the Philadelphia Parks Alliance, calls that investment historic - and that's no exaggeration.

Long regarded as a tarnished jewel because of decades of neglect and dwindling resources, Fairmount Park turns out to be a valuable gem: A new study shows the park's enormous economic benefits bring an annual return of $1.9 billion in services, income and taxes paid to the city treasury.

So this is exactly the right moment to figure out how best to reclaim, nurture and grow Fairmount Park for the future.

In a vote expected today, Council can do just that. A proposal from Council members Darrell L. Clarke and Blondell Reynolds Brown would put a City Charter change before voters in November to merge the Park Commission and the city Recreation Department.

The reorganization recommended several years ago by Fairmount Park's strategic plan would make Nutter and his successors fully accountable for the upkeep of the park.

With 75 recreation centers just found by City Controller Alan Butkovitz to have shoddy or hazardous conditions, the merger also should jump-start an overdue review of facilities to determine a better fit to serve fewer residents.

Even with the merger, the city's park stewardship mandate will remain unchanged: preserving Fairmount Park's woods, meadows and trails for future generations.

Assuring that will be the central role of a newly created Commission on Parks and Recreation, a panel that would make policy recommendations on land use, facilities and the like. So hacks need not apply.

In fact, the open appointment process would stress expertise - instead of having commissioners anointed by politicians who too often direct city judges to make picks that show little regard for qualifications.

Among the nation's top 10 cities, only Philadelphia has yet to unite parks and recreation. What held up the reform for several years was the understandable fear by park advocates that, without more funding, revamping how Fairmount Park is run would not deter its further decline.

Now that Nutter has delivered on his campaign pledge on park funding and is pursuing an environmental agenda, those concerns have been allayed.

It's time to move ahead to enhance Fairmount Park as an asset that breathes life in city neighborhoods, attracts residents and businesses, and boosts the city's economic vitality.