Time to cut expenses and listen to parks visitors
With the resignation of parks supervisor Tim Gallagher [“Seattle parks chief to resign May 10,” NWTuesday, April 27], I hope we get a new chief who would take the parks department’s shaky budget into account and do his or her best to reign in these extravagant and often unnecessary expenses.
In defending the vast amounts of money spent on his trips, Gallagher said “learning from other cities is key to keeping a parks department vital and relevant.” I disagree; learning from the people who pay for all this and the people who care about the parks is more important — and it is hard to learn if you will not listen.
— Nancy Pennington, co-founder of Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants, Seattle