California State Parks That You'll Miss When They're Gone:

[lwood]

This is of statewide interest to residents of California:

Our Governator has proposed some fairly stringent budget cuts in this next fiscal year's budget, which will involve serious cutbacks in social programs, public safety programs--and the closure of two hundred state parks.

You want a map? Have a map.

jon_decles, Clear Lake State Park is on the list.

emberleo, Portola Redwoods is on the block.

Amateur astronomers in the audience can say farewell to Fremont Peak just outside San Juan Bautista.

Did you think Tarantula Fest down at Henry Coe would be fun? Right around my birthday every year, when the male spiders come from their holes looking for love, and the people come and watch and some of California's most passionate park volunteers stage a battle versus arachnophobia. Henry Coe Park is on the list.

I suspect my SoCal readership will have their own favorites, but that's enough sample to get on with.

This morning's San Francisco Chronicle has an article with five parks that the author will miss most if the cuts go through without amendment. The parks won't be sold, but they will be closed to the public for at least a year to reduce staffing and maintenance costs.

"Go through without amendment" is the key phrase here. This would be an excellent time to e-mail, phone, or write to your state representatives--and how do you find those out?

Your state tax dollars are already at work. Tell your State Senator and Assembly Representative that if they want your vote in the next damn election, they can find some other way to address this shortfall: like social services and infrastructure maintenance, state parks aren't fat for trimming either. Cut some hours at the DMV, have every Assemblyman kick a toady to the curb, whatever: this stinks. Find something that sucks less.

Obviously, we have to ask what to cut instead, as the shortfall is real and needs addressing. I do not know; I am not a financial analyst, this is not my job; this is why we elected those bums, and why those bums have staff. While, yes, the loss of one or two of said flunkies would save Henry Coe...but the byzantine politics of state budgets is never that simple, and when I'm not wearing my rantypants, I do know this.

Okay, back to your morning coffee, after which pass along, take action, and all that jazz.

-- Lorrie

Comments

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

My step-dad works for the CA state parks up in Mendocino. He says it's only 40 parks. He says pink slips will go to people with low seniority. The money-making parks won't get cut though. I think more people could be economically disadvantaged by shorter hours at the DMV than having certain parks temporarily closed, personally.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

At the moment, it's still two hundred, because the can hasn't been kicked around yet. I know the real list will be much shorter. Predictably, urban dwellers will scream and run around in circles about urban and nigh-urban parks (like many of the ones I mentioned), so they'll probably be saved. Parks way in the tules (Plumas-Eureka, anyone?) will likely be closed.

So: just now, your stepfather is wrong, but in a few weeks, he'll probably be right, and you can add a few early retirements and the usual to help round things out.

The money-making parks won't get cut though. I think more people could be economically disadvantaged by shorter hours at the DMV than having certain parks temporarily closed, personally.

Well, yes, although the Chronicle article could think of reasons the State might have wanted to write off almost every park on that list. I didn't make particularly intelligent alternate suggestions--I also pointed out that I don't have the credentials necessary to figure out what an intelligent suggestion would be.

My worry is that a park that's closed "temporarily" this year can be quietly sold off in five or ten.

-- Lorrie

[kaffee-spinne.livejournal.com]

My worry is that a park that's closed "temporarily" this year can be quietly sold off in five or ten.

That's true...but I think that would have to go through some legal hoops to do so.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

One would hope.

-- Lorrie

[mephron]

I'm going to make the politically-suicidal suggestion:

RAISE TAXES.

If there's not enough money coming in, shrink some nonessentials (yes, like booting a functionary or forty to the curb so hard they bounce) and bring in more money.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

While nominally a Republican (which must horrify the in-laws to no end, but he was in bed with Reagan before he married Maria), the Governator knows that to keep the big coastal cities happy, he has to do a lot of things that are more populist than Republican. Then he does more obviously Republican things so he can appeal to...the rest of the state, really. Turlock doesn't play like Oakland, you know?

Anyway, neither of those two positions can get away with raising taxes--as you say, political suicide. Also, despite furtive denials...we are in economic trouble at present. State parks, however, aren't terribly expensive, as things go; he's not saving a lot by cutting them, although one might argue that the screaming and jumping from this will draw attention away from something else that is going through...

-- Lorrie

Holy cow!

[dragonhearth.livejournal.com]

He's also reducing lifeguards! Does he really want the lawsuits that might engender? Dang!

Re: Holy cow!

[countgeiger.livejournal.com]

Mrrf. Kinda says something about the state of this state, and the country, when a lawsuit due to someone not being smart enough to know when they should stay outta the water or should get out of the water is the first consideration. (No offense to YOU, dragonhearth, more a commentary on our lawyerhappy nation.

Re: Holy cow!

[ardaniel]

Former CA State Parks reservations agent here. (Did six months. Hated the call-center grind so much that someone paid me to quit my job. That being said, I know a bit about which parks are popular and which ones are not.)

Some of those lifeguard reductions would be taking place at some of the most popular sites in Southern California, like San Elijo, Cardiff, South Carlsbad, and Bolsa Chica. That would probably be unuseful and make those sites less popular, as people like to bring their small children there, get out on the beach, have campfires, etc.

Some of them would be at, say, San Onofre... where *no one* wants to go unless they have no other options, as it is Right Next Door To Yon Giant Power Plant. People who go to San Onofre have RVs and don't want to get out of them to behold the power plant, so they're not generally swimming either. So, on one hand that's Bad, on the other... people don't always go to the state park to swim, especially when there might be three-eyed fish about.

In NorCal, I see a reduction at Seacliff/ Manresa/ New Brighton. I didn't handle Manresa or New Brighton-- they had their own ranger setup for that.

I *did* handle Seacliff. It is aptly-named. There's a cliff, the ocean, a beach, a concrete fishing pier, and a ship that's unsafe to go exploring aboard. The State Parks website says it's a popular swimming hole, but I never reserved a site at Seacliff for anyone who mentioned the awesome swimming-- they all had RVs and Loved the View and Had I Ever Been There.

Now, aside from rangers, pissed-off people not getting spots at popular parks and not having overflow, drowning folks, and the like, there are other people who are going to feel that in the pocketbook. The State Parks reservation system is split between "on-site" and telephone.

The telephone kids are nowhere near the parks, except for Sutter's Mill SHP. That's because they're all crammed into one call center in Rancho Cordova, CA, where they also handle about eight other kinds of calls (including Ticketmaster). There's about 80 of them, tops, they work for *jack shit* pay (when I was there, it was $9 an hour tops-- if you were *managing the floor*), they often can't afford insurance through the company that handles the reservations...

oh, and about 10 of them, at any given time, are elderly retirees who get their health coverage from the state as long as they're working *somewhere.* Guys in their 80s, women in their 70s, we had one guy who mostly slept in the back of the call center between his calls and looked about a hundred.

Those people do not handle every park, to be sure. They don't handle state historical parks. They're mostly there to reserve your RV slot or tent site at the big parks.

*No one should give these people more shit than they need.* They are taking enough, I can assure you, between the low pay, the going on Medi-Cal, and the dealing every day with people who want to put a 55' RV on the cliff at Seacliff and don't see the problem. Closing parks and cutting staff is going to cut into their company's bottom line-- and the company sucks, yes, but those people don't deserve that.

Rant over. Carry on.

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

*screams*

*realizes she is still screaming*

*starts looking for a sturdy weapon*

*realizes that's less effective than communicating clearly*

*stops screaming*

Who do I call?

--Ember--

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

Enter your zip code, get contact info for your state reps

--Ember--

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, there was an address entry thingy on the right.

Poorly designed site--I should have said. Sorry about that. My zip code (huzzah for gerrymandering!) has two different assemblymen, so I had to enter my real address for a real answer.

-- Lorrie

[arcturus.deadjournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

They Can't Do This! As has been mentioned, a park that no one can go into had might as well be quietly sold in a few years, right? Er, no.

It makes me wish I were still paying taxes in California somewhere so I had a representative or two to complain to. I have hiked, explored, camped, admired the view, swum at, and generally enjoyed a good few of the places on that cut list. I also had a momentary panic at the sight of Henry Coe on the list, until google confirmed my thought that my pet park is Henry Cowell (which is not far from Henry Coe). These are places that I go to every time I return; places that I dream of showing my husband and my children when we someday take a family trip there. With so little of the state's land open to the public, what little we still have should be treasured and kept for the joy of all.

[midgarthheathen.livejournal.com]

I was stationed at Beale AFB just outside of Yuba City for three years in the early nineties. I have fond memories of a lot of those parks up north (this particular dork dove into a pool at the bottom of a waterfall to swim out to a little rock so his then gf could take a picture of him - it was a hot May day, however if this dork's brain had engaged he would have remembered that the waterfall was fed from melting mountain top ice! Brr!)

Have they past the point of no return yet? Or can something be done to open Conan's eyes?

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Again, this is at the "Governator has proposed" stage--the State's Senate and Assembly have to approve everything, and as I pointed out to kaffe_spinne, while this is the time to act on that, it's also a good time to see what this large, shiny target has been erected to obscure.

-- Lorrie