City Budget
Today's agenda includes hearings on the budgets for various city-funded arts and cultural organizations. Mayor Michael Nutter wants to boost the funding for Fairmount Park by 40 percent over the next five years.
By Alex Schmidt
WHYY News, April 1, 2008
Park advocates often cite a comparison of today's staffing and funding levels with those of the 1970s as proof that Fairmount Park has been grossly underfunded for the past few decades. This year, Mayor Nutter wants to reverse that trend by adding $16 million over the next five years.
"I thin this is an acknowledgement by the mayor of the value of the Fairmount Park system, which is 63 parks, 11 percent of the land, to the environmental and social health of the city," said Mark Focht, Executive Director of Fairmount Park.
Focht said that in the first year, $1.5 million would go toward hiring more staff and $1 million would go toward planting street trees and trees on public land in Philadelphia.
City COuncil will also be hearing budget testimony about the Atwater Kent Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Camp William Penn and the city's Department of Recreation.
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