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Conservation did well on election day, too

Kaid Benfield: Director, Smart Growth Program, Washington, DC; Blog | About; Posted November 13, 2008 in Living Sustainably , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , U.S. Law and Policy

Earlier in the week, I reported on the success of various transit measures in referenda around the country on November 4. According to our friends on the Trust for Public Land's excellent City Parks Blog, it was also a record-breaking election for parks and open space:

"On November 4th, voters backed 62 of 87 (71%) conservation finance ballot measures, which will generate a single-day record of $7.3 billion in new funding for parks and open space lands. Overall in 2008, voters approved 88 measures totaling $8.4 billion in new public funding for land conservation, a single year record . . The record-setting amount of funding for 2008 can largely be attributed to the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment, which totaled $5.5 billion (a single measure record). The Minnesota measure will fund everything from wildlife habitat protection to city parks.

"Among the other significant measures yesterday (not necessarily all cities) for land acquisition were:

East Bay Regional Park District (CA): A $500 million bond measure

Hillsborough County, Florida: A $200 million bond measure

Hunterdon County, New Jersey: An extension of the county' 3-cent property tax for 20 years, which will generate $152 million

Community Preservation Act elections in Massachusetts - 7 of 8 measures were approved, bringing the total of communities statewide that have adopted CPA to 140; and

Blaine County, ID: A 2-year property tax for open space.

Read their complete post here.

Tags:: ballotinitiative, cityparks, landconservation, openspace, referendum

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Comments

Phil — Nov 13 2008 06:44 PM

It's great to see voters get behind this type on conservation! :)

Lets just hope next year we see the upwards trend continue; with somewhere else doing what Minnesota did this in year 2008..

We need more parks with nicely mowed lawn and parks for our kids to play in…. hmmm and adults for that matter ;)

Phil

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