MANSFIELD — Mark Abrams said Tuesday night he hopes the defeat of a City of Mansfield parks & recreation tax issue is not an accurate gauge on how voters feel about the parks.
Instead, the city’s parks & rec superintendent cited 40-year-high inflation for the primary reason a 0.25-percent, four-year income tax increase failed.
“I think when you’re looking at gas that’s at $4 a gallon, I think it’s a little hard to ask people to give more money for improvement in the parks,” Abrams said.
“I think maybe the timing of it was off, I think maybe because of some things that are out of our control, that maybe things didn’t go as planned,” he said.
According to final, unofficial totals from the Richland County Board of Elections, 55.32 percent of city voters opposed the increase, which would have fueled the city’s “master plan” for parks, including a new $8 million pool and aquatics center.
There were 2,745 votes against the tax increase, compared to 2,217 in favor. Just under 18 percent of registered voters in the city participated in the election.
“Hopefully, this isn’t a referendum on the parks. I hope the citizens of Mansfield enjoy their parks. I really do. I just hope this is an issue of everybody’s paying too much for everything else right now,” Abrams said.
The four-year tax would have generated about $3.7 million annually (about $15 million over four years) and would cost someone earning $32,000 a year between $36.50 and $43.80 in additional income tax annually.
Instead, the parks & recreation department will continue to exist on about $850,000 received annually through the PRIDE tax.
The defeat puts the brakes on most of the projects identified in the $29 million master parks plan, including the replacement of the city’s only public pool at Liberty Park, which was closed in 2021 and will not re-open.
2022 Richland County primary results
Abrams said he was uncertain if the city will put the issue back on the ballot in November.
“We will have a meeting (with the city administration) in the morning. We’ll sit down and look at the numbers and talk about it.
“As you know, we ran a low-key campaign. If we come back and run a killer campaign and see what it looks like, maybe we can put it back on in November.
“That’s a discussion we’ll have to have with the administration,” Abrams said.
The superintendent said he didn’t think a more aggressive primary campaign would have made a difference.
“I honestly believe in my heart, if we ran a more aggressive campaign, I think we would have failed by bigger numbers,” he said.
“We still have the PRIDE money and we’re thankful for that. We will look at what we have and see what we can do (in terms of improvements). Maybe we can revisit the skate park and revive the (public) interest in the parks again,” Abrams said.
