Continuing what his series of depressing press conferences predicting the budget-pocalypse, interim King County Executive Kurt Triplett announced today that yes, he’s planning to kill the parks next year and yes more cuts will come. “This is a difficult day for me,” he said. Today’s announcement means that unless the council comes up with another way to fund all parks in unincorporated areas, 39 will be fenced off and the bathrooms locked. Triplett says he will also cut 13 positions in the county parks department. Six of those are spots that the county left vacant, but seven people will lose their jobs, Triplett says. That’s on top of his announcement last week where he said he’ll propose cutting 257 positions from administration staff in his and the council offices last week. But “mothballing” the parks only cuts another $4.6 million from the budget. That takes the total cuts announced so far to $23.3 million, still well short of the $56 million Triplett needs to cut to balance the budget. Of course, all announced cuts require council approval so none of this is a done deal yet, but expect more “World is Coming to an End” press conferences from Triplett in the next month and a half before the deadline for his final budget proposal to the council.
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