Naomi Schaefer Riley

Naomi Schaefer Riley

Opinion

Looking to loot the city’s parks

Central Park is the crown jewel of Manhattan, but it wasn’t always this way. As Conrad Kiechel wrote in a 2010 City Journal article, in the ’70s, “The park’s lawns were dust bowls; its trees’ limbs were broken, their roots exposed; graffiti and inoperative lights marred the once-manicured landscape.”

And if Bill De Blasio gets his way, Central Park may be going back to the last days of disco.

De Blasio supports a bill in Albany that would force the Central Park Conservancy (and any park conservancy with a budget of $5 million or more) to give 20 percent of its operating funds for redistribution to other parks.

Over its more than 30-year existence, the Conservancy has overseen $690 million worth of investment into Central Park, of which $536 million was raised from private sources. It has helped get tens of thousands of volunteers to keep the park beautiful and welcoming to New Yorkers of all backgrounds.

That kind of success makes politicians’ mouths water.

Mind you, maintaining the park should be covered by our tax dollars. But city politicians long ago diverted those funds to other areas; it was only when the Conservancy was created to raise private funds that the job finally got done. And now the politicians want a cut of that money.

Never mind that the proposed law would violate the intent of the private donors who gave the money to the Conservancy in the first place – and thereby discourage the kind of philanthropy that has helped make New York the thriving city it is today.

In July, De Blasio told NY1, “I think we have to share the wealth a little bit here.” OK, that didn’t come as a shock to anyone who’s heard any of his other plans.

But then came his explanation for why it’s OK to take money that people have given to one cause and instead use it on another: “For anyone who wants to donate to Central Park, they’re still going to be helping Central Park; most of the money is still going to benefit Central Park,” he said. “But some of that has to be moved to where the need is greatest, in neighborhood parks that, right now, are really suffering.”

William Schambra, director of the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, notes, “We already have a device for shifting resources from the better off to worse off. It’s called government. Philanthropy is supposed to be an alternative.”

The idea of turning philanthropic dollars into public dollars gained currency in recent years. Organizations like the National Center for Responsive Philanthropy argue that foundations should make half their grants to serve “lower-income communities, communities of color and other marginalized groups, broadly defined.” And groups like the California-based Greenlining say that, since foundations benefit from tax-exemption, the government should have a say over how they spend their money.

But de Blasio doesn’t even offer an excuse for his Robin Hood plans.

“The surest way to reduce charitable contributions would be to impose a redistributive tax on them,” warns Kim Dennis, the president of the Searle Freedom Trust, which focuses on issues related to individual freedom and economic liberty.

She explains: “Before long, there will be fewer donations going to the crown-jewel parks and less to redistribute to the rest. With fewer charitable dollars to go around, it’s only a matter of time before taxpayers are asked to pick up the tab.”

Of course, Bill de Blasio wouldn’t mind that, either.