Now blogging from North Carolina's Triad (Greensboro/Winston-Salem/Highpoint) and hiking the trails as I find them.
All New: Map page for my North Carolina hikes
Most of the content here reflects five years worth of hikes in the San Francisco Bay Area. I've created a Guide to Bay Area Hikes for those who are looking for nice dirt paths to trod in Northern California.
Found this at Blog Monterey: A 1935 documentary called “Land of the Giants” profiling Civilian Conservation Corps work in California’s parks.
Must viewing for fans of our state parks. The National Archives is screening a bunch of historic films at its YouTube site. The vid above is from a series on the Great Depression.
Could a $15 fee added to auto registrations save California’s state parks? The California Legislature’s Budget Conference Committee thought so, voting yesterday to remove state general fund dollars from state parks and replace them with the proposed fee. This post at Examiner.com says the committee voted on party lines: all the Democrats favored, all the Republicans opposed. I can’t help thinking: Do the Republicans really, truly, honestly think we should just padlock all our state parks and let them either a) rot; or b) fill up with gun-toting pot farmers? And lose the millions in revenue they generate for the parks’ neighbors? This is the party of commerce?
California gets back every dollar it spends on state parks several times over — and this fee could free the parks from the funding roller coaster the rest of the state is on. I know it’s infuriating to even think of taking state parks out of the general fund: the parks are our state’s capital. They need to be preserved and invested in for future generations, not made a pawn in Sacramento’s power games. Still, the state’s in a deep hole and the fee could keep the parks open till better times return and parks funding can be restored. I’m from the “80 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing” school, so I like the idea.
You can stop in at the California Parks Foundation’s page and join an e-mail campaign in support of the fee.
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Required reading: The Mercury News guide to the state budget crisis.
California Parks Foundation wants us to wear green ribbons, visit a state park and demonstrate solidarity in the need to save our parks from the budget ax. Soon you’ll be able to upload pictures and videos of your state park outings. I can’t make up my mind whether this threat to close California’s parks, which saves a laughably small amount of money, is just another consciousness-raising ploy like it was last year. I do know the state is in extremely deep doo-doo this time, far worse than the last.
(Props to Randy Lloyd for sending the link along).
Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors voted yesterday to look into the idea of having the county parks department manage the lands of Henry Coe State Park that lie within the county, if the state’s proposal to close the park (along with virtually all the Bay Area state parks) goes through as planned after Labor Day. (more…)
Alert reader Gus sent this link to a Sacramento Bee story of proposed state parks to be closed. These are the ones in the Bay Area. Places I’ve been to are bold-faced. Here’s the list of the sites that will remain open. Mainly places where revenue covers the costs, and, more disturbingly, almost exclusively devoted to motorized recreation. As long as you’re willing to pony up for the privilege of trashing a state park, you’re in the clear.
| Diablo Vista District
Annadel SP Bale Grist Mill SHP Benicia Capitol SHP Benicia SRA Bothe-Napa Valley SP Candlestick Point SRA East Shore SP State Shoreline Jack London SHP John Marsh Home SHP Mount Diablo SP Petaluma Adobe SHP Robert Louis Stevenson SP Sonoma SHP Sugarloaf Ridge SP |
Marin District Angel Island SP China Camp SP Mount Tamalpais SP Olompali SHP Samuel P. Taylor SP Tomales Bay SP Monterey District Carmel River SB Fort Ord Dunes SP Fremont Peak SP Garrapata SP Hatton Canyon Henry W. Coe SP John Little SNR Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP Marina SB Monterey SB Monterey SHP Moss Landing SB Pfeiffer Big Sur SP Point Lobos Ranch Point Lobos SNR Point Sur SHP Salinas River SB San Juan Bautista SHP Zmudowski SB |
Santa Cruz District
Año Nuevo SNR Año Nuevo SP Bean Hollow SB Big Basin Redwoods SP Burleigh H. Murray Ranch Butano SP Castle Rock SP Castro Adobe (Rancho San Andres) Gray Whale Cove SB Half Moon Bay SB Henry Cowell Redwoods SP Lighthouse Field SB Manresa SB Montara SB Natural Bridges SB New Brighton SB Pescadero SB Point Montara Light Station Pomponio SB Portola Redwoods SP San Gregorio SB Santa Cruz Mission SHP Seacliff SB Sunset SB The Forest of Nisene Marks SP Thornton SB Twin Lakes SB Wilder Ranch SP |
More on the parks closures in the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times.
For now they’re saying the parks will stay open through Labor Day to maximize revenue.
Keep in mind there’s so little to be saved by closing parks — because so little is being spent to begin with — that this is mainly an exercise in political theater to make a point.
Stop in on the California Parks Foundation page and help ‘em raise a little hell.
Hope you’re fine with the county parks and open space preserves: Once again Gov. Schwarzenegger thinks cutting $70 million in parks funding will somehow close the gap on a $20 billion deficit.
This is clearly a political stunt like it was the last time, but the stakes are far higher: California’s budget is hostage to income tax and sales tax revenues. When the economy slides, the state’s revenues nose-dive. The state will run out of cash next month if spending isn’t brought in line with revenues. Deficits are truly out of control now.
From this morning’s Mercury News:
Faced with a ballooning deficit and a clear signal that voters won’t pay more to fix it, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a budget plan Tuesday that would eliminate welfare, drop 1 million poor children from health insurance, cut off new grants for college students and shut down 80 percent of state parks.
In a state that long has prided itself on its social safety net, it could well go down in history as the most drastic reduction in social programs ever. And billions in further cuts will be unveiled later this week.
The governor’s proposal to whack an additional $5.5 billion from state programs stunned even longtime Capitol-watchers with its blunt force. Ending cash assistance for 1.3 million impoverished state residents, for example, would make California the only state with no welfare program.
“Every single first-world nation has a safety net program for children,” said Will Lightbourne, Santa Clara County’s social services director. “This would return us to the era of Dickens — you’d have to go back to the 19th century to find a comparable proposal.”
Proposing eliminating welfare and gutting aid to college students — like closing the state parks — hits voters where they live. While most of us middle class types don’t know any poor families that depend on state aid, we don’t want the state to let them starve. Nor do we want our state parks (which spend hardly anything in the grand budget scheme) shut down. And we’d prefer the state help us out with the skyrocketing cost of a college education.
Californians did a funny thing a few years back, as if they understood that they’d tax their neighbors (but not themselves) all the way to 100 percent if somebody let them. They voted in a law that says all tax increases must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the Legislature. That came after passing a law way back (Prop. 13) saying property taxes didn’t have to keep pace with property values.
So now we’re in a situation where the small minority of lawmakers from Republican districts are standing in unison saying “we’ll bankrupt the state before we allow a tax increase” and everybody else is kinda/sorta nodding in agreement because raising taxes in a recession would be a bad idea anyway.
Frankly, state parks are the least of our worries in a crisis of this magnitude. The state can’t keep borrowing $20 billion a year to finance its deficits, but it also can’t really afford to cut spending when so many people are already out of work. It’s the worst of all possible worlds.
California can’t save but a pittance on parks because keeping them closed is not much cheaper than leaving them open so we of the hiking tendency might not suffer all that much.
Of course, something has always managed to bail Californians out of all previous crises like this one. Let’s hope the magic works again.
Paul Rogers writes in this morning’s Mercury News that Santa Cruz Assemblyman John Laird wants to fund state parks by adding $10 to California’s annual car-registration fee.
Under his proposal, which is expected to face opposition from Republicans who call it a tax increase, a $10 annual surcharge would be assessed on the registration of all vehicles except trailers and commercial trucks.
In exchange, anyone driving a vehicle with a California license plate would get free year-round admission to any of the state park system’s 278 beaches, parks or museums – from redwood forests to Southern California sand dunes. Parks normally charge entrance fees between $6 to $10.
The proposal would become part of the Democrats’ draft state budget for the upcoming year if it clears a vote today in a Democratic-controlled budget committee, as expected.
Tempting, though it paves the way for using registration fees to subsidize a gazillion other state needs.
Then again, it’s only 10 bucks and my California license plates get me in free.
California’s state parks need a lot more money. Paul Rogers of the Mercury News summarizes the pluses and minuses of several key strategies. One of my copy desk cronies wrote this gem of a headline: How would you feel about ‘Budweiser Beach’? Rogers identifies five scenarios:
Pluses: Users — who generate costs — help defray them. Alternative to unpopular taxes.
Minuses: Prices the poor out of their parks, assets that benefit the whole state even if everybody doesn’t use them.
Pluses: Brands can put their names on branded activities — so, perhaps, an REI trail might encourage REI consumers to hike on it. Non-Californians let Californians off the hook financially.
Minuses: Aesthetically offensive, politically poisonous. Funding susceptible to corporations’ bottom-line pressures.
Pluses: Dedicated income stream protects parks from economic ups and downs. Reliable revenue ensures better upkeep, which attracts more people. Holds user fees down.
Minuses: Prop. 13 makes it almost impossible to create new taxes, even for things the state’s populace likes, like state parks. Creating a tax for parks makes every other interest group think they oughta have their own tax too.
Pluses: A large enough endowment generates interest payments that can pay for park operations and maintenance. Limits user fees.
Minuses: Endowment has to be huge, like a billion dollars, to generate enough income. Education interests will demand that schools get full funding before such largess is given to parks.
Plus: Free labor from true believers.
Minus: Free labor from true believers.
All of these factors add up to the situation we’re in now: Over a billion dollars worth of maintenance put off till another time. Meanwhile, parks become embarrassingly tattered and people have an excuse to take their activities elsewhere.
Previously:
External links
Paul Rogers of the Mercury News documents the decay of the California state parks system, and just how bad it’s gotten. From part one in this morning’s paper:
This Memorial Day weekend, campsites are booked from Mount Shasta to San Diego. But California’s state park system – once considered the best in the nation – is falling apart.
Its 278 parks include priceless locales that define the state’s history and natural splendor: Sutter’s Mill, Lake Tahoe, towering redwoods and “Baywatch” beaches.
Yet throughout the system, sewage pipes are crumbling. Roofs leak and thousands of scenic acres are padlocked for lack of rangers.
If you believe we need state parks, and that we need them not to be tattered embarrassments that horrify the tourists, pick up a copy of today’s paper and read this report — the graphics illustrate the forces that got us into this mess, and the photography shows in stark detail how bad things have gotten.
Part 2 on Monday deals with what can be done about it.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has dumped his plan to close 48 state parks. The Sacramento Bee reports:
Backpedaling from his earlier plan, the Republican governor will not seek to close 48 state parks, ask for early release of 22,000 inmates or give schools less money than they are guaranteed by the state Constitution.
Advocates who were briefed on the governor’s plans late Tuesday, however, said most of Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts to health and welfare services will remain in a $101.8 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The guy who ran Gray Davis out of town on a fiscal-responsibility platform wants to use future lottery revenues as collateral for $15 billion worth of bonds to close the current deficit. Hmm.
Looks like Henry Coe and Portola Redwoods are in the clear for now. Fees may go up a dollar or two, though.
