Only 4 Lacey council members OK’d parks tax resolution. How would the other 3 have voted?
Four members of Lacey City Council voted last week to approve a parks tax resolution, placing the creation of a Parks District on the Aug. 5 ballot for city voters to consider.
If approved by voters, the parks tax, which will be Proposition No. 1 on the ballot, will fund a Metropolitan Park District. The district will levy a property tax of 45 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or $225 a year for the owner of a home valued at $500,000. The MPD is expected to raise about $6 million a year for parks and parks maintenance.
The city has more than 20 parks. It recently broke ground on a new park — Greg Cuoio Park — but also has popular Wonderwood, Rainier Vista and Woodland Creek parks.
The council, though, is a seven-member body, but only four members voted on the matter: Mayor Andy Ryder, Malcolm Miller, Carolyn Cox and Robin Vazquez.
The three others — Nic Dunning, Lenny Greenstein and Michael Steadman — were absent either because of vacations or other obligations. So how would they have voted on the resolution? The Olympian reached out to them on Monday. Here’s what they had to say.
Nic Dunning
Dunning, who was reached by text, said he, too, would’ve voted in support of the resolution.
“One of the main things that attracts our residents is the quality of our parks system, and I think it’s important to then let our voters/residents make the final decision with their votes,” he said.
Dunning also pointed out that the city worked long and hard with the community to get as much feedback as “we possibly could” on the parks district proposal.
Lenny Greenstein
In 2018, Greenstein voted against a similar Metropolitan Park District resolution. This time, though, he said he would’ve most likely voted in favor of it.
So what changed? He pointed to the city’s efforts to think through the process and to share comprehensive information with voters.
To that end, the city formed a 15-member Parks Improvement Funding Workgroup to review parks expansion and parks replacement projects. Greenstein added that the city’s parks department did a “tremendous amount of outreach for over a year.”
In 2018, the district was identified to fund an indoor sports arena, but a feasibility study for the arena wasn’t going to be ready until after residents had voted.
“I had serious issues with that,” Greenstein said.
Michael Steadman
Steadman, who also was reached by text, supports the resolution.
“We involved the public more in what they want to see and have for their shared quality of life,” he said. “If you don’t have a good parks system, then you don’t have a good quality of life. Then you spend 10 times as much enjoying other places parks and benefiting their quality of life.
“The best dollar a city can earn is that of another resident that lives outside your city,” Steadman added.
This story was originally published April 8, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
