Ballot Battles: The Fight for Green Space Funding in an Age of Misinformation
By ADELYN MUI
Public green spaces—parks, forests and conservation areas—increase potential for varied recreational opportunities, improved mental and physical health and better environmental sustainability. However, funding these spaces remains a challenge.
Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism faculty members Sharon Zou and Nick Pitas are studying how communities value and pay for green spaces. Their research, initially focused on a case study of greenspace ballot initiatives (GBI) in Champaign and Cook counties, has expanded to examine voter behavior, funding mechanisms and the role misinformation and disinformation can play in these initiatives.
Zou said green spaces benefit people and the environment in many ways.
“The role of nature in human health—not just physical but also mental health,—has proved to be very important,” Zou said. “Public green space is also a place where the community gets together, so it's also about social cohesion and community well-being. If we go more broadly, green space is important for conservation in general, to make sure nature is being protected.”
The catch: Public parks and recreational areas can be expensive for taxpayers, requiring routine maintenance, infrastructure improvements and expansion efforts. While some funding comes from government budgets, many communities turn to ballot initiatives—voter-approved measures that allocate more funds for conservation and park services.
However, not all voters see funding these spaces as worthwhile. Pitas said there’s a variety of reasons why voters might be against it.
“They could be opposed because they don't think that the agency that receives the money is going to be doing a good job,” Pitas said. “They could be opposed because they don't see the value in paying into common resources that benefit everybody but don’t benefit them as an individual. They may be ideologically opposed to the idea of paying taxes in general.”
Campaigns against green space initiatives often benefit groups with financial or political objectives. Real estate developers, for example, may oppose conservation efforts limiting new construction opportunities. Political organizations pushing for lower taxes may frame GBI as promoting excessive government spending, even when the long-term benefits outweigh the costs.
“One of the unfortunate things about elections in the last, you know, couple decades is that false information has become a much more important factor in determining the outcome of those elections,” Pitas said. “Everybody has a global microphone in the form of a social media account now.”
Organized groups can use disinformation—the deliberate spreading of false information—against voters, or frame information in a way that opposes GBI. For example, a group might make a claim that property taxes will increase more than they actually will, or that a park district owns more land than it actually does. Pitas and Zou are designing an experiment to test the impact of false information on people's voter behavior.
“We have two types of inoculation,” Zou said. “One is more general—it'll say, ‘Hey, be aware that there will be groups that are opposing these referendum initiatives, and they might spread disinformation.’ We also want to compare that with a more detailed inoculation and lay the facts about the referendum, about the public land status, and about how the natural resources management agencies are managing the land.”
By exposing voters to potential disinformation before it reaches them and consequentially debunking the falsehoods, Pitas and Zou hope their research provides them with the accurate information to make informed decisions.
“I always love translating my research into helpful and meaningful practices and creating an impact in the community,” Zou said.
Pitas and Zou also hope that their research can combat misinformation—the unintentional spread of false information. Pitas cited a recent successful example of this: a proposal for increased property taxes to fund maintenance and improvements on preservation properties.
In 2020, the Champaign County Forest Preserve District successfully increased property taxes to fund maintenance and improvements for existing properties. This was a turnaround from 2008 when a similar tax proposal failed, partly due to opposition from the Champaign County Farm Bureau.
Pitas said that in 2008, the Farm Bureau was concerned that the new funding would be used to purchase agricultural land for conservation, reducing farmland availability. But in 2020, the Forest Preserve District proactively engaged with the Farm Bureau and assured them that no agricultural land would be acquired or converted.
With this clarification, the Farm Bureau vocally and publicly supported the 2020 measure due to proactive outreach on the part of campaign volunteers, which was pivotal to the success of that ballot initiative. Campaign volunteers also solicited support from a variety of community organizations, such as Rotary clubs throughout Champaign County.
Pitas and Zou are looking to connect with any agencies who have experience with or are interested in GBI. The overarching goal is to better understand other case studies, the issues related to voter behavior, mis/disinformation and how these individual pieces fit together as a larger picture.
At the end of the day, green space benefits everybody, Pitas said.
“For you, and for me and for your people that live in the community; it benefits plants and animals that depend on that space, it protects groundwater, it protects the quality of the air that we breathe and it protects places that are rare and might not exist anywhere else,” Pitas said. “There are benefits for everybody.”