Pocket Change: The cost of Independence Day

Read San Diego 4th of July fireworks 2009 guide

Free beaches, free parking, free lifeguards… Are you kidding? Nothing is free.

Last year’s Fourth of July festivities cost the City of San Diego an additional $123,000 for about 200 hours of lifeguard and police overtime, port-a-potties, trash cleanup, and other needs at the beaches and parks between Ocean Beach and La Jolla, according to the Independent Budget Analyst.

Considering how many people go to the beach during Fourth of July weekend, that number seems rather small. Keep in mind that there are many festivities taking place at other parks within the city, and some extra money is spent by the city in these other areas.

Last year the Fourth fell on a Friday, making for a three-day weekend, and more tourists coming to San Diego to celebrate. This year, the Fourth is on a Saturday, so the IBA expects fewer people at the beaches and parks. It’s important to note that the city does not pay for fireworks celebrations.

The City needs to spend extra money to keep our beaches and parks safe and clean, so is there a way to make it back from the tourists who come here? Does the extra tax income from tourists already cover this?

Pocket Change regular commentator and president of the National University System Institute for Policy Research, Erik Bruvold has a novel solution for jam packed beaches and a way to get a bit of cash to pay for the extra Fourth of July costs. “Consider a situation where you pay for parking. In such an instance you might decide to pick up your friend and carpool to the beach rather than ‘meet them there’ and thus take up multiple parking spots. When you put a monetary value on something scarce like a 4th of July beach parking spot, it encourages people to use that thing more efficiently and, as a result, we are collectively better off.”

It makes sense to charge a parking fee to non-residents at our beaches.

A city in such dire economic straits should be thinking of every possible way to raise money, especially when spending extra money on frivolities. It’s hard to stomach it, but San Diego is in a fiscal hole that will take some drastic measures to dig its way out of.

Murtaza Baxamusa, Ph.D., AICP, director of Research and Policy at the Center on Policy Initiatives, gives his take on Independence Day:

The fireworks are the most visible elements of the celebration on the fourth of July. What is less visible is the existence and role of the government that enables the celebration.

Indeed, the congregation of half a million San Diegans to participate in a public event is no ordinary feat. And there is government on display in no ordinary way. There are police patrols by foot, scooter, bike, motorcycle, ATV, car, boat and choppers, courtesy of the San Diego Police Department. There are almost two hundred lifeguards, emergency vehicles, and fire engines, courtesy of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

There are crews that pick-up 150 tons of trash, bring in portable toilets, clean the restrooms, courtesy of our Parks and Recreation Department. And finally, we have the Street Division cleaning the roads, and Environmental Services Department dealing with the refuse containers, the morning after. The economic impact of the 4th of July celebration on the city of San Diego has not been determined. Our free beaches, free parking, free lifeguards, free police, free trash pickup, and free restroom facilities are quite a deal for our residents. The city invests about $125,000 in additional costs from our general fund. And it receives sales tax revenue from the shops and restaurants that benefit from the beach traffic.

Independence Day is not just a tribute to the establishment of a government, but a living testimony of how government works.”

Now for a view from the other side of the aisle, Erik Bruvold, president of the National University System Institute for Policy Research:

The City’s investment in our beaches is money well spent. There are more than 250 million trips made annually to the California beaches. A 2006 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pegged the economic impact of beach tourism in the greater Los Angeles/Orange County area at $1.2 billion. In 2007, NUSIPR  reported that more than 1 out of every 5 tourists visiting San Diego indicated that going to the beach was at the top of their “to do” list.

We shouldn’t rest on our laurels. The budget crisis in Sacramento threatens to close some of the region’s most beloved state beaches. Storm water runoff remains both an economic and a health problem and the lack of a dedicated funding strategy or broad consensus around a comprehensive plan is troubling. Beach goers who spend hours circling for hours to try to find a parking spot at La Jolla Shores, Mission Bay or Pacific Beach might question whether “free” parking is really free.

But those challenges shouldn’t obscure the fact that San Diegans love their beaches and it remains a critical area where public investment yields a great return.

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Steven Bartholow is the SDNN multimedia editor and a political writer.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 am and is filed under Business, Columns, Pocket Change, Politics & Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.