The East Bay Regional Park District (Park District) is embarking on a transformative journey to create our next District Plan. The District Plan is a strategic roadmap with key priorities to guide us into the next century of leadership and excellence. The District Plan will align with the Park District's mission statement, which states:

The East Bay Regional Park District preserves a rich heritage of natural and cultural resources and provides open space, parks, trails, safe and healthful recreation and environmental education. An environmental ethic guides the District in all of its activities.

We will gather input from the public and from staff before the forward-looking, actionable District Plan is approved by the Park District Board of Directors. In Spring 2025, we received nearly 5,800 survey responses in the first round of public input. These responses have helped shape the key questions for the second round. For this round of engagement, we are asking for your input on:

1. Draft goals for the District Plan
2. Priorities related to the functions and activities of the Park District
3. Budgeting and tradeoffs

Your input will guide the development of the District Plan and the future of the Park District. (If you would like to provide specific suggestions about existing parks, please use the Park District Contact Form here.)

On this page, there is a questionnaire and an activity. Submissions to both will be used to shape the District Plan. The questionnaire is on one tab, with two key questions about goals and priorities, three opportunities to share your thoughts, and a few questions about you. On the second tab, there is a budgeting activity – choose types of projects to fund based on your priorities. Please allow 10-20 minutes to complete both tabs.

Like most government agencies, every year the Park District goes through a budgeting process to decide which projects will be funded. A budget process considers two major cost categories: 1) capital, or construction, costs and 2) operations and maintenance costs. Because there are more construction projects each year than the Park District can afford to build, we consider how well each project supports our long-term goals, how much it will cost, and how much it will take to maintain over time to make sure we’re building toward the future we want to see.

Another component of budgeting is taking care of everything that is already built and providing excellent experiences throughout the parks – the operations and maintenance budget. This includes both regular and daily maintenance, as well as staff that maintains parks, ensures public safety, and interfaces with visitors. While construction costs are one-time costs, operations and maintenance costs are ongoing.

Give it a try! Think about the next 10 years for the Park District and our East Bay communities and select the types of projects you think should be funded. You have $2,000 to spend, and each project costs $11 to $318. Costs shown are scaled to reflect real-life cost, on average. Some considerations as you make your choices:

• Each project cost represents two components:
  • 1) Construction costs, also known as capital costs, and
  • 2) Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs for ten years
• Regular maintenance of existing infrastructure is largely covered by the Park District’s current annual operating budget and adds relatively little to the operations and maintenance costs.
• Remember your goals and priorities from previous questions.
• Review all project types before building your budget.
• You can select more than one project for each spending type.