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LCityot <br />Louisville <br />PARKS & RECREATION <br />Memorandum <br />To: Louisville City Council via 4/1/14 Meeting with <br />Bob Muckle, Mayor and <br />Malcolm Fleming, City Manager <br />From: Open Space Advisory Board (OSAB) <br />Date: April 1, 2014 <br />Re: Conservation Trust Fund Expenditures <br />OSAB was, and remains, in full support of the reauthorization of the Conservation <br />Trust Fund tax. However, the wide variety of expenditures from the fund over the <br />past three years and the high -level accounting of expenditures at the department <br />level (Parks) instead of the program level (Open Space, Maintenance, etc.) <br />combined with the lack of open space property acquisition, has resulted in discussion <br />and questions among the board regarding prioritizing and understanding fund <br />expenditures and the difficulty of benchmarking our program again other <br />communities. It should also be noted that members of the public have attended <br />OSAB meetings and expressed similar concerns. <br />While the ballot measure language sets the boundaries on how tax revenue from the <br />fund is to be utilized, there is still quite a bit of room for interpretation about <br />implementation. It is clear from the ballot measure language that the fund shall be <br />"spent exclusively for the acquisition of land in and around the City of Louisville for <br />open space buffer zones, trails, wildlife habitats, wetlands, preservation and future <br />parks; and for the development, construction, operation and maintenance of such <br />open space zones, trails, wildlife habitats, wetlands and parks "; acquisition of and <br />operation of open space and its many functions are listed first and in detail. It is our <br />understanding that while parks is the last item in both the acquisition list and <br />management list a significant majority of the expenditures from the fund in the last <br />two years have been in support of parks and that expenditures that have directly <br />supported open space activities appears to be relatively small. We do not believe <br />this is consistent with the order or details of the list of activities as described in the tax <br />language. We have also heard from the small sampling of active citizens <br />participating in our meetings that it is their understanding that the primary purpose of <br />the fund is the acquisition and management of open space land. These individuals <br />have argued in support of prioritizing open space acquisition and operations. <br />7 <br />