By Korrine Skinner, Board Chair
Twenty years ago marked a turning point for San Mateo County’s park system, which was then showing the strain of a decade of declining funds and increasing use. In the 1990s, revenue allocated to local governments was shrinking and mandated expenses growing, leaving little left for the county’s 19 parks.
By 1998, park use boomed to more than 3 million visitors a year, yet inadequate funding led to reduced staffing and a backlog of nearly $25 million in deferred maintenance, improvements and programs.