Four years after using money from a parks fund to bail out the city’s golf courses, Phoenix now has a plan to pay it back.
It sparked bad feelings in 2013 that still irk taxpayers like Greta Rogers today.
“You gave the middle-finger salute to the citizens of Phoenix and then stuck the finger in their eye,” she told council members during Thursday’s meeting.
Rogers didn’t like the city moving $15 million from the Parks and Preserve Initiative Fund to cover debt at public golf courses. Other residents like Ernest Martinez support the plan to use proceeds from the sale of eligible park lands to pay back the fund, but pressed the council to be more specific.
“It would be good to see a timeline in this plan, a short timeline: three or four or five years,” he said.
Phoenix set a five-year goal to sell 10 properties.
“At this point the land that’s been identified by the Parks Department as potential excess for sale, our best estimate is that’s about $7.5 million worth of land,” said Ed Zuercher, city manager.
This fall, the council will discuss possibly selling other city-owned land to make up the difference.
