People walking during guided tour

Community Health

Key Advocacy Goal

To guarantee equitable access to parks so that all East Bay communities can enjoy the physical and psychological benefits of open space.

  • Improve access to and use of the parks by members of groups that are underrepresented, such as persons with disabilities, the economically disadvantaged and elderly park visitors.
  • Provide a diversified system of regional parklands, trails and related services that will offer outstanding opportunities for creative use of outdoor time.
  • Interpret the parklands by focusing educational programs on the visitor’s relationship to nature, natural processes, ecology, the value of natural conditions and the history of the parklands.

Survey Identified Voter/Community Support

  • In a November 2021 survey, 97% of respondents identified efforts to expand and maintain parks and trails for community physical and mental health to be extremely/very/somewhat important.
  • This same survey identified 94% of respondents believed parks and trails will play an equal or greater role in their life after the pandemic.
  • In this same survey, 97% of respondents identified maintaining visitor use facilities, including restrooms, to ensure parks and trails are welcoming to all and universally accessible with ADA improvements to be extremely/very/somewhat important.
  • “Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of parks and open space for our psychological and physical health. The Park District has approximately thirty-six thousand acres of public lands not yet open for public use. Additional funding would enable the safe opening of additional East Bay parks and trails. Now is the time to increase accessibility to our parks.” In a November 2021 survey, 75% of respondents found this message for increased public access investments convincing.

2021-2022 Board Supported Legislation

The following legislative initiatives are supported by the East Bay Regional Park District Board of Directors and Legislative Committee:

State

  • AB 1512 (Bauer-Kahan D-Orinda) Preservation of Alameda-Tesla Expansion Area
  • AB 30 (Karla D-San Jose) Equity in Outdoor Access to Nature
  • SB 624 (Hueso D-San Diego) Environmental Equity and Outdoor Access Act
  • SB 799 (Glazer D-Orinda) and AB 1512 (Bauer-Kahan D-Orinda) Preservation of Alameda-Tesla Property of Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area issue resolved in the 2022 state budget

Federal

  • H.R. 389 (Case D-HI) Safe and Quite Skies Act of 2021
  • S. 2258 (Hickenlooper D-CO) and H.R. 1678 (Barragan D-CA) Parks, Jobs and Equity Act
  • S. 91 (Sinema D-AZ) and HR 535 (Garamendi D-CA) Special Districts Qualify for Coronavirus Relief Fund

Contact Us

Comments and questions? Email us: govaffairs@ebparks.org

 

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