Governor Considers Closing 220 State Parks to Save Money

This is the WRONG way to " save" money . Californians pay taxes and we deserve to be able to use the parks. They generate more than they cost. Especially in this tough economy we need the parks to be able to afford any vacation at all. This is not fair to the American People.!!

Californians have gotten themselves into this mess, and this is one of the real consequences. I don't think there IS a right way to save money when we've voted ourselves into a quagmire this deep. We're all going to be suffering as Sacramento is forced to slash through the budgets of every program and service that the state provides.

Direct copy of an email rec'd yesterday from PelicanNetwork.net, a nonprofit working to preserve and educate people about the Big Sur area. Note the link in the middle will direct you to a site. Please take 1 minute of your day to complete it and it will fax California legislators and let them know that we do not want OUR parks to close.

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___________________________
All,

You can stop the Governor from closing State Parks.

Tuesday, June 2 the Legislative Budget Conference Committee will hear testimony from grassroots conservation groups (including PelicanNetwork) from all over the state. We will deliver our messages about the absurdity of closing parks to cut the State budget. We will tell them how important our parks are to our communities, too. There will be powerful testimony. But the most effective testimony will come from you. Your voice expressed directly to your State Senator and Assemblyman can make the difference.
Legislators have to hear from you. Please go to this webpage to get your message to your legislators:

http://ga3.org/campaign/budget_may09

California Parks Foundation has prepared a list of parks the Governor would close and the legislators' district - it includes 223 parks, or 80% of all state parks. It was prepared by. It includes each county, assembly district and senate district with each park proposed for closure. The list is attached.

If you have questions, or want to include your perspective in the message we will deliver Tuesday, or if you want to go with me, email me at or call me at 831 667 2025.

If, like me, you have concerns about the administration of our state parks, join me in a campaign to make changes. We will launch that campaign right after we stop this crazy proposal to close the parks. Right now, we must stop this irresponsible budget grandstanding by the Governor.
Jack Ellwanger, PelicanNetwork

In addition to the good points raised above about the meat-ax approach to closing parks to "save money," locals should recall that in each of the last three of our wildland fires many evacuees fled to El Cap and Refugio for a few days. Do you think the state will open closed parks near fires in the future when they are again needed as escape valves? I wouldn't bet on it.

There IS no right way for the state to save this much money. Too bad voters didn't get that before the election. At least these potential closures--and they are unbelievable--make the state's fiscal situation evident to everybody. What will it take before a majority of voters grow up and recognize that they need to pay their way?

A very vocal and angry group of voters are opposed to any kind of tax increase, for any length of time. But the state has borrowed all that it can borrow, too much in fact, and it's time to start paying it back. And the economic downturn means the state has less revenue than it needs.

I voted against the propositions because they were badly written. But I'm willing to pay a little bit more in taxes if it means we don't kill people who will die without the services they are receiving from the state, if it means we don't throw away federal matching funds that pay for most of the cost of certain programs, and if it means we don't do stupid things like closing the parks which generate more economically than they cost.

I personally am sick of penny-wise pound-foolish choices which are made to appease that group of people who can't handle the concept of our generation paying our own way.

Send petty criminals home with ankle bracelets instead of providing them with three hots and a cot. Stop paying for health care for legislators; they need to know what the health care market they have helped to shape is really like. But don't expect that we can get out of the hole we are in without a dime more in taxes. We need some spending cuts, some new user fees, some taxes. Suck it up already!

And if our current crop of politicians can't balance the budget w/out killing anybody or making cuts that cost more in the long run than they save, we need a volunteer legislature that meets online. I would volunteer and I'm sure there are other sane people who would also. There's some cost savings for you.

Bitter partisan politics are getting us deeper and deeper into an economic morass where the more is slashed, the more the economy contracts, the less revenue the state receives, so more is slashed...somebody with a brain needs to get on tv with some charts which explain our hamstrung budgetary process and have the cajones to call a constitutional convention to make fixes and tell political extremists that their time has past. We are in quicksand if we try to do the job with nothing but spending cuts.

If you use public goods or services of any kind, and believe me, you do, get over the idea that lowering taxes somehow magically still pays for the things we need without borrowing ourselves into a hole. This was voodoo economics and it didn't work. Since it makes no sense, it's not surprising. We are all going to have to pay a little because we ran up debt at the state level, and all of that K-12 we pay for is pretty useless if no one can grasp the simple math behind this. When you borrow, you have to pay back. The virulently anti-tax crowd is either deluded or horribly irresponsible and should not reap political rewards for such behavior.

good points, beep.

not only will closing the parks damage local economies, cleaning up the parks and reopening them to the public will most likely have a healthy price tag. i'm also concerned about damage in larger parks from squatters and trespassers who trash them.

perhaps parks need to become nonprofits and be supported by foundations and donors & government - and still be accessible to the public. or, a conservation corp and the federal gov could possibly take over ... this seems to be what ahnold is expecting with such an outrageous proposition.

They could consider opening just at the weekend and raising the entrance fee.

I'm as infuriated as everyone. But this wasn't about saving money, it was about getting the public's attention.

Californians have been demanding more services and fewer taxes for a few decades now, and the math (which was fuzzy to begin with) is no longer working out. I guess the governator and legislature had to do something to make sure that Californians started to grasp that.

But I'm angry at the legislature. They DO have the money for state parks. My understanding is that those oil rigs we all have to look at pay into a fund for wilderness preservation and state parks. As with schools and mental health services, the state gets money that is earmarked, and then they play a shell game with it, moving it into the general fund so they can spend it on their pet projects. Then they turn to the voters and say that they don't have the money. They should be able to balance the budget without cutting services for those under 5, the mentally ill, and schools (as propositions 1C, 1D, and 1E proposed to do), and without cutting the services that real people actually use. It's funny that their proposed budget cuts don't involve corporate subsidies or tax breaks to big businesses. They want to balance the budget on the backs of our children and the most needy. That said, I'm also not against paying higher taxes, as long as I know what it's for.

The L.A. Times had a great article today on experts from several fields' suggestions for beginning to balance our budget. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-... .

Consider:
1) Arnold plans to release thousands of prisoners
2) Jobs are hard to come by for anyone, much less and ex-con
3) Societal and direct support services are nearly gone.

Consequence? A huge rise in the crime rate. You read it here first.

I think it is safe to say that things are pretty f*cked up and won't be getting better anytime soon. It's really depressing.

The California State Parks have been an important part of our lives - it is what makes Caliornia Great.

See
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/save...

and let's continue to be able to enjoy the great outdoors and our oceans!

You don't vote for the Guv's propositions, you can't go to the Park, little Johnnie. Uh, Guv, how about you and your gang STOP SPENDING OUR MONEY on illegals, unions, special interest groups and save a little for "us?" I'm talkin' about us - the Native Californians who work and pay taxes. Darn right we want our parks. We want our STATE back...

Lest we forget human nature: When the jailers reduce the food supply for the prisoners, the prisoners turn on each other.

Let us turn swords to plowshares and bring home our troops from foreign lands; take away the weapons; hand them a hammer and shovel; and let the Department of Defense pay for our parks for a year as the war vets live in lovely natural areas and fix up our neglected infrastructure.

This just heard from a friend who is a state parks employee... their budget is only 1/10th of 1 percent of the entire California budget. Why are they being targeted so drastically? Could it be the Guv is trying to make us mad & emotional? What if, like our own family business already did, the state just did a flat 10-15% across the board cut of everything? Actually we had to do 20%, but we're still in business. Our state politicians are so out of touch, we'd be better off starting from scratch. Speaking of scratch, what if our state had to declare bankruptcy? Hmmm... maybe then we would have to re-negotiate those unsustainable, unrealistic pension funds that will drive future generations in debt forever? Come on people, stop being so selfish and lets start over! Stop spending what we don't have! I want our state back too.