Over a period of years, the elected Sacramento County Board of Supervisors has allowed the regional park system, including the American River Parkway, to undergo a slow, steady decline.

Finally, supervisors reached the point where they were considering zeroing out parks from the county budget. The county could not guarantee safe, clean and properly maintained parks. It could not develop long-held parklands, which have limited or no public access. It could not prepare a park and trail system for the population of the future.

Per-resident general fund spending on regional parks dropped from $5.44 per year a decade ago to a paltry $1.33 in 2009-10. Today, the general fund provides just 19 percent of the regional parks budget, with fees providing 41 percent and other sources providing the balance.

Supervisors did the right thing last May, committing to study governing and financing alternatives with the aim of placing a measure on the ballot in November 2012. They vowed to keep the parks budget at bare bones until then. So now comes decision time.

The Grassroots Working Group charged with studying alternatives met once a week for a year. It raised private funds to hire the Trust for Public Land to study five options and commissioned a firm to do scientific polling of likely voters.

At the backdrop were two major failures: An unsuccessful effort in 2007 to create a joint powers authority for the American River Parkway and an unsuccessful effort in 1994 to create a dependent parks district with county supervisors as the governing board and funding from $10 a year in property taxes.

Voters clearly indicated they want something other than the current failed model, with county supervisors running the show, and they don't want property owners alone sharing the burden for parks.

So the Grassroots Working Group recommended an independent parks district, based on the East Bay Regional Parks model, to run the parks, with its own elected board.

It would be funded by a sales tax, so people outside the county who visit parks would pay, too. Twenty-five percent of the funds would go to the 17 special parks districts and four city park systems, including Sacramento, Folsom, Galt and Isleton, and not just to the county's regional park system.

As with other cities and counties that have created similar districts, this would require enabling legislation – which needs to get going by August of this year.

Supervisors will act on Tuesday. The staff report is puzzling, to say the least. It is as if the yearlong process had not occurred at all. If supervisors follow the staff recommendation, it essentially means going back to square one – back to May 2010.

The staff recommends no further study of the independent parks district idea – without offering any research or argumentation. Thus, it recommends against enabling legislation.

The staff seems to think that the county can simply go to the voters for a sales tax while keeping the Board of Supervisors as the governing body for parks – essentially asking for more money for a failed model. Why would voters support that?

Beyond that, the staff report suggests that the county might use rental car, hotel or billboard taxes and gravel pit royalties to fund parks. Those are worth considering, to be sure. But that leaves open the issue of governance.

At a minimum, supervisors on Tuesday should support enabling legislation to leave their options open – as they decide by July 2012 what, exactly, they want to put on the November 2012 ballot.

They should not let a year's work go to waste.

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