Despite the City of Tulsa's financial belt-tightening, the Parks and Recreation department doesn't foresee major interruptions in maintenance and capital projects.
At a virtual meeting of the Tulsa Parks & Recreation Board on Tuesday, Anna America, the city's parks director, said parkgoers don't have to worry.
"It shouldn't impact it at all. A lot of them, the money's already allocated, it's already there," America said. "I don't think that we have anything on our list that is threatened because of this. It may take longer to get to them, so things may move farther out than we had expected, but I don't even know that that'll be the case."
Jack Blair, Mayor G.T. Bynum's chief of staff, concurred.
"We were generating a surplus before all of this happened, so we were in a pretty good position," Blair said. "Some of the packages we're relying on, Improve Our Tulsa in particular, is in effect until we raise a certain dollar amount, or seven years, which is sufficient, presumably."
Tulsa voters approved $30 million in parks funding under the umbrella of the Improve Our Tulsa capital improvement plan at the polls last year.
City parks are open, with "strict physical distancing precautions" in place. City playgrounds, pools, and splash pads remain closed.
