Nearly each day, I get to hearken to water flowing, leaves rustling, and birds singing, punctuated by the occasional horn from the close by 110 Freeway. I’ve the privilege of working on the Audubon Heart at Debs Park, a good looking place nestled inside a good looking metropolis park, Ernest E. Debs Regional Park. This place jogs my memory every day that nature isn’t one thing Angelenos have to go away the town to expertise. It’s right here, threaded by our neighborhoods all throughout Los Angeles – and our parks make that doable. This November we have now the chance to assist these inexperienced hearts of our communities; we get to vote Sure on Measure PRK!
Parks are important infrastructure, not non-compulsory facilities. From Runyon Canyon to Echo Park Lake and Sepulveda Basin Recreation Space to Peck Park, each single park brings a wealth of advantages to all of us. They assist cool our neighborhoods throughout warmth waves, preserve our air and water cleaner, present joyful locations for our children to play, add to our basic high quality of life, and supply important habitat for migratory birds just like the Least Bell’s Vireo and resident birds just like the California Towhees that we take pleasure in seeing each day.
However all these locations of belonging, of local weather resilience, of connection to nature are chronically underfunded. Los Angeles parks face an almost $3 billion deferred upkeep backlog. Underinvestment impacts every thing from fundamental upkeep and staffing to the care of pure areas and bushes—and in the end impacts the individuals who depend on these areas. Actually, Los Angeles parks had been ranked 93rd out of America’s 100 largest cities within the Belief for Public Land’s 2026 ParkScore rating.
It’s not that Angelenos don’t care. They overwhelmingly do! A latest ballot discovered that 8 in 10 Los Angeles voters imagine parks and leisure companies want extra funding and assist this initiative.
That’s why Measure PRK is such a straightforward sure. It gives the predictable, devoted funding our shared parks desperately want, with out elevating a single greenback in taxes. As an alternative, it updates the Metropolis’s assured funding components for Recreation and Parks, from the paltry 0.0325% of the price range it has obtained since 1925 to 0.065%.
At Debs Park, we see how a lot individuals rely upon these areas. Residents use the paths each day. Households collect to take pleasure in film nights, artwork courses, and chook sits. Volunteers be taught to establish and plant native species. Younger individuals acquire hands-on expertise caring for the land and start to see themselves as leaders and land stewards. These experiences are doable as a result of a park is greater than a spot individuals go by; it may be a spot the place individuals belong, take part, and construct a relationship with their group and pure atmosphere.
Los Angeles has a possibility to resolve what sort of metropolis we need to be. One with vibrant inexperienced areas, clear seashores, and protected and reasonably priced locations for youths to play. Or one on the very backside of the record of main cities in how a lot they care for his or her pure and leisure areas. Let’s cease forcing our parks to do extra with much less, and provides them the change they should take care of these locations and the individuals, wildlife, and communities that rely upon them.
Be part of me in supporting our parks and voting Sure on Measure PRK this November. Learn more about what Measure PRK would mean for Los Angeles parks.
