With the city poised to slash the parks department budget, park maintenance continues to fall short, and Sacramento Press readers are asking if the city should just outsource park maintenance altogether, while union leaders think it’s a bad ide, and a city park comissioner says its been tried before without success.  “The obvious question here is what is the cost if all park maintenance staff are laid off, and the services (are) outsourced to a non-union private contractor?” asked “Cogmeyer,” a frequent Sacramento Press commenter. Craig Powell, president of the local political watchdog group Eye on Sacramento, agreed, saying that outsourcing park maintenance “has to be on the table.” Po

The next time you go to a city park, bring your pruning shears and garden gloves: Park maintenance in the city is about to be dealt a $119,000 budget blow – leaving the department with one-man maintenance crews and increasing the burden on volunteers to pick up the slack. “I’m not happy to say this, but we have inadequate resources and inadequate staffing,” Director Jim Combs told the City Council Tuesday. Even with a department budget reduced by more than 60 percent and staffing reduced by 50 percent over the past five years, Combs said everyone in the department has done their best to keep city services afloat. But it’s a losing battle, Combs said. The city’s park services maintains

Community centers in Sacramento got a boost Tuesday when the City Council approved more than $459,000 in funding to close the gap between what the centers have and what they need to stay open until next year’s budget is passed. Council members voted unanimously to take $459,188 from the city’s Economic Uncertainty Reserve – money that initially came from cell phone tower profits in each district – to pay for labor, supplies and services necessary for the remainder of the fiscal year. The total funding necessary to maintain operation of the city’s 15 community centers was $917,000 in the 2010-11 fiscal year, according to Dave Mitchell, division manager for the Dept. of Parks and Recreatio

With help from neighborhood volunteers and a group of rose-lovers, the rose garden at McKinley Park will be getting a facelift this fall. The 1.5-acre rose garden, which was originally planted in 1928, will be closed from September to mid-February for renovations, including a new irrigation system, accessible walkways, planter curbs, new signs and accessible parking spaces near the garden entrance. According to a recent historical assessment, the 83-year-old garden has not been upgraded or improved for several decades except for the rose arbors, which were replaced five years ago. “This may be the first time (the rose garden) has ever been given this much attention,” said Claudia Bordin

It’s back to the drawing board for designers from the Department of Parks and Recreation and City Councilman Steven Cohn. Plans for a new park in Midtown need to be refined after a community meeting Wednesday that revealed concerns about the future park’s amenities. Community members gave their input Wednesday about the proposed neighborhood park site at 19th and Q streets, which sits on contaminated land. Located across the light rail tracks from Safeway along T and S streets, the 0.9-acre plot of land was acquired by the city of Sacramento in 2008-2009 for approximately $2 million and the property remains gated off according to Mary Debeauvier, a principal planner with the Parks and Re

An ordinance that bans for-profit businesses from renting Sacramento’s athletic fields could soon be a thing of the past in the Parks Department, which has seen numerous cutbacks and faces still more in the current budget. “It does prohibit the commercial use of our fields,” said Teresa Jackson, the Parks Department’s general recreation supervisor. The ordinance governs use of fields and, as it currently stands, does not allow commercial entities to rent fields unless they are taking part in a fundraiser for a nonprofit, Jackson said. Jackson said that the ordinance is being reviewed. “It has been brought up over the years that there are a number of groups that would like to rent the fi