Recreation – Sonoma style
A newspaper not-to-be-named recently conducted a survey asking: “Should the city establish, staff and fund a recreation department?” Nearly 70 percent of respondents said “Yes.”
Since the entire globe could take the online survey, it was hard to tell if the 107 respondents lived in Sonoma, or Kirkuk. But everyone who lives in the City limits knows: Sonoma can’t afford a rec department.
For one thing, City Council already gives tens of thousands to privately-run non-profits that ‘do’ recreation, such as the Boys & Girls Club, whose young clientele is comprised largely of Springs residents. Last year, Council generously promised $25,000/year to support a new community pool, to be built in the Springs. When it comes to funding recreation outside the city, City Council is nothing if not a Good Sport.
Council also has more pressing uses for residents’ tax dollars than providing for residents. Since Citizens United, Council realizes that “businesses are people, too,” and that catering to business whims is “the civil rights issue of our time.” Council has thus felt morally compelled to funnel as much taxpayer money as possible to businesses in the form of: (a) Thousands of dollars in ‘forgivable loans’ to spruce up storefronts and make other business improvements, because local bankers who studied finance and graduated high school don’t do ‘forgivable loans.’ (b) $125,000/yr. to the Chamber of Commerce to pay salaries of its staffers dedicated to attracting more new businesses to town, to sop up the flood of forgivable loans; and (c) $440,000+/yr. in transit occupancy taxes (TOT) diverted from the City’s treasury back to the local Hotel Industry, known locally by its more wholesome name, the “Tourism Improvement District” (TID).
In addition to improving hotel profits, TID improves recreation for Tourists, who are far more important than residents unless, of course, those residents happen to be businesses. So great is the burden on the City’s private Job Creators that most can’t pay their employees enough to actually live in the City; 90 percent live elsewhere, where subsistence wages go further (and recreational opportunities abound).
But the primary reason Council doesn’t fund a Rec Dept. is that residents don’t use the rec facilities they have now. Take the Field of Dreams, for example. Acres of City-owned baseball fields leased to a non-profit for a pittance for a 19th century sport which dwindling numbers of 21st century youths actually play. Most of it sits unused most of the year.
In fairness, however, it has been rented by rock concerts, providing a few nights recreation for residents and where, per ADA access requirements, VIP sections are set aside for those severely disabled by extreme wealth. Drought notwithstanding, it stays lushly green, providing a quiet meditation retreat where lesser residents can reflect on lawns they sacrificed to Council’s insistence that, drought-wise at least, “we’re all in this together.”
For residents craving more recreation, one possibility remains: Incorporate the entire family as a business (“The Joneses, Inc.”), ask for a forgivable City loan and use it for family business improvements: ‘49-er season tickets. A backyard pool. Pole-dancing lessons. (Add your business improvement HERE.)
