there's a ballot measure this year for more property taxes to support the parks department. that sounds nice, everyone likes parks, right? it turns out that 90% of the budget for the department goes to the city run youth soccer program. less than 3% of the kids in the program are city residents, the rest are from the surrounding region. our soccer program is beloved because we're basically subsidizing youth soccer for at least a quarter of the metro area even though we're less than 1% of the metro population.  supporters of the ballot measure say it is needed to catch up on deferred maintenance in the parks but the way it is written, all the money will go into the unrestricted general fund and they've constantly expanded the youth soccer program each year so there's no reason to expect that won't happen even more with the additional property tax. most of my neighbors had no clue this was the case. they were mindlessly supporting 'yes' because they want better parks. they had no idea what they were really supporting was for all the mystery meat children of this side of the metro to come here each week and be provided with recreational services funded by us. they know all about the presidential candidates but had zero understanding of what this local issue would do. this happens all across the country with people entirely focused on national races and knowing very little about their local government.
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