{"id":70986,"date":"2025-12-15T12:57:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T12:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/70986\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T12:57:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T12:57:06","slug":"advocates-push-mamdani-to-quickly-move-on-pledge-for-nyc-parks-budget-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/70986\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocates push Mamdani to quickly move on pledge for NYC parks budget boost"},"content":{"rendered":"

Park advocates are ramping up pressure on Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani<\/a> to quickly get to work on his promise to earmark 1% of the city government\u2019s budget for spending on New York City public parks.<\/p>\n

New Yorkers for Parks and the Play Fair for Parks Coalition, grassroots organizations that have long advocated for increasing city parks funding, are set to this week roll out a policy blueprint that they\u2019re urging Mamdani to act on in his first 100 days as mayor.<\/p>\n

At the top of the list is a plea for Mamdani\u2019s first city budget proposal, due at the end of January, to include a big enough parks funding increase for the city to reach the 1% threshold within his first term.<\/p>\n

The $688 million the Parks Department is currently allocated constitutes about 0.6% of the city government\u2019s total budget.<\/p>\n

Adam Ganser, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, said that bumping funding immediately up to the 1% benchmark isn\u2019t realistic. But Ganser said his coalition hopes Mamdani\u2019s first city budget bid both includes some immediate increases and lays out a clear path for how to get to the 1% level via additional funding hikes in subsequent years.<\/p>\n

Ganser told the Daily News that\u2019s especially important after Mayor Adams failed for each of his four years in office<\/a> to make good on his 2021 campaign pledge to set aside 1% of the city\u2019s budget for parks. Citing fiscal fallout from the migrant crisis, Adams instead enacted funding cuts<\/a> that haven\u2019t been reversed, resulting in the elimination of some 600 Parks Department job, including in the agency\u2019s maintenance unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor-elect Mamdani now has the chance to reset the city\u2019s priorities and prove on day one that parks are essential infrastructure, especially for working families,\u201d Ganser said.<\/p>\n

A rep for Mamdani, who\u2019s set to be sworn in as mayor Jan. 1, didn\u2019t return a request for comment on the parks\u00a0budget demand.<\/p>\n

Mamdani most recently affirmed his 1% parks budget commitment during the final mayoral election debate<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

January\u2019s preliminary blueprint is the first step in the budgetary process, which involves the mayor\u2019s team and the City Council negotiating for months before they must come up with a final spending plans for all city government agencies by the July 1 start of the 2027 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

Council Parks Committee Chairman Shekar Krishnan said he agrees with Ganser\u2019s request for Mamdani\u2019s preliminary budget. \u201cI think it would be a great signal for the mayor-elect to send,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Besides the 1% budgetary pledge, the parks advocates\u2019 blueprint urges Mamdani to, among other actions, end a hiring freeze at the Parks Department enacted by Adams and order repairs at every closed public park bathroom within 100 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Park advocates are ramping up pressure on Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to quickly get to work on his promise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[302,9,24,14181,56,63,65,64,36326,36325,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-70986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-city-hall","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-yorkers-for-parks","12":"tag-ny","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-nyc-headlines","15":"tag-nyc-news","16":"tag-play-fair-for-parks-coalition","17":"tag-public-parks","18":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}