CHICAGO -- Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said Friday he was closing 50 city parks to save money after the Detroit City Council rejected a proposal to lease the city’s largest park to the state government for 30 years.
The cuts will drop the number of open city parks to 57, down from an original 308, according to local reports. Bing also said the city would limit services at an additional 38 parks and cut programs at recreational centers.
The move comes as a state review team continues to probe the city’s books. Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to announce this month whether to appoint an emergency manager.
The council’s rejection of the lease will be taken into account by the state review team, a Snyder spokesman said last week. Snyder withdrew the offer after the council voted Tuesday 6-3 to table the measure.
Snyder and Bing had both pushed for the council to approve the lease of Belle Isle, a popular 987-acre island park that is nicknamed the jewel of Detroit.
The park would have become part of the state system for 30 years. Either side would have had the option terminate the lease every 10 years. Michigan was expected to issue $20 million of bonds to fix up the park, and charge a new $11 per-vehicle annual entrance fee.
The lease would have saved the city $6 million annually and allowed it to move city employees to other parks, Bing said.
“We looked a gift horse in the mouth,” Bing said at a press conference Friday morning where he announced the closures. “We had a deal that was workable that would not have closed parks. We’ve got to stop all this wishful thinking, all this pie in the sky,” he said. “When we thumb our nose at $6 million, I think it’s nuts.”
Bing said the city chose to close parks based on use and size as well as proximity to so-called premiere parks and the Detroit Works plan to shrink the size of the city.
Brad Dick, the director of the city’s general services department joined Bing at the press conference. He said the decision to close the parks was “bothers all of us,” and that the parks would look “pretty awful” by the summer.
“It’s going to be tall weeds with trash,” Dick said. “They will look like vacant lots. It’s going to look very bad.”
