Sometimes it’s hard to take Mayor Bob Walkup and the Tucson City Council seriously:

• Although sales tax income is down, some of them bought canvas sacks with their names on them to give away so Tucsonans will use fewer plastic grocery bags.

• With a slumping housing market, the council searches for ways to make homes cost more when building resumes.

• Some council members print and mail out color newsletters about themselves but apparently don’t worry much about things such as our serious crime problem, the national financial turmoil that may keep the city from selling bonds for Rio Nuevo projects, or the possibility that we could lose spring training baseball and most of our gem shows.

On Sept. 13, Deputy City Manager Mike Letcher said Tucson would have to cut contributions to local nonprofits by $3 million or more because of a projected $40.8 million shortfall in this year’s city budget.

"It’s not over yet," he said. "This was a very hard decision to make."

Walkup, who was traveling to Israel, issued a prepared statement supporting the cuts saying, "Tough times require tough decisions."

But while social agencies and charities searched for money for children’s education, arts and job training, city officials were planning to block off 88 parking spaces downtown, along Fourth Avenue and near the University of Arizona on Sept. 19, a Friday, for something called "National Park(ing) Day."

City employees, merchants and members of nonprofits decorated parking spaces with furniture, water features, recreation projects and other diversions for pedestrians, motorists and downtown workers. When the event ended, city employees cleaned up their own spaces and helped others clean theirs.

It was the Old Pueblo’s first venture into the national event, which began in San Francisco in 2005.

And by golly, our 88 shut-down parking spaces led the 70 cities involved this year, organizers said. San Francisco was first last year with 58.

"It was wonderful that Tucson is taking the lead to show the importance of open space and park space in our community," the still-absent Walkup said in another prepared statement.

While we are now No. 1 at something, the Tucson Museum of Art is considering leaving downtown and moving outside of Tucson to a site in Oro Valley or near the Western La Paloma Resort and Spa in the Catalina Foothills. The museum says it needs more exhibit space and much more parking than it has downtown.

At a Sept. 2 meeting at Councilman Rodney Glassman’s Ward 2 office, 70 merchants and nonprofit representatives told Walkup, Glassman and Councilwoman Regina Romero that downtown needs more special events on Saturdays and Sundays so Tucsonans can visit their businesses and agencies on days when families aren’t tied up with work or school.

Walkup, Glassman and Romero told attendees they support the idea.

So why didn’t we decorate parking spaces a day later on Sept. 20, a Saturday? It would have been safer and less aggravating for motorists and pedestrians, and government employees could have volunteered for the project instead of missing work.

In an e-mail to constituents, Romero said the parking event was to promote the need for more city, parks, particularly "natural resource" parks such as Sentinel Peak, Greasewood and Case parks.

She said the national average for city parks is 10 acres for every 1,000 people, but Tucson has only six acres per 1,000 people.

That may be true, but Pima County and the federal government have thousands of acres of national resource parks just outside the city limits. Our two Saguaro National Monuments, Tucson Mountain Park, Sabino Canyon and Mount Lemmon are pretty impressive.

Meanwhile, about a third of Tucson’s land is vacant, causing sprawl and generating little property tax revenue. City officials talk a lot about infill projects but do little to encourage them.

The bottom line is that Tucson lacks affordable downtown parking Monday through Friday, when government employees are at work and citizens come downtown to deal with them or serve on juries.

Scraps of carpet and fake flowers once a year won’t solve that.

Contact Steve Emerine or e-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Emerine is a regular Monday guest on the John C. Scott radio talk show, which airs from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to noon weekdays on The Voice KVOI 690-AM. This column appears weekly in Inside Tucson Business.