California parks get reprieve, won't close Sunday Posted: | MercuryNews.com |
A year after Gov. Jerry Brown announced that 70 state parks would be closing to save money, state officials Thursday said that none will close by Sunday's deadline after all.
The state has finalized deals with private groups, local government and corporations to provide funding to keep 40 open, California Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird said. Another 25 are the subject of negotiations with private donors who want to keep them from closing, and state officials need a few weeks to finish those talks, during which time all will remain open, he added.
But at five parks, so far no groups have come forward as saviors. So those parks may close this summer if no funding is found, Laird said.
They are Benicia State Recreation Area, Zmudowski State Beach near Watsonville, the California Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa, Gray Whale Cove State Beach in Montara and Providence Mountains State Recreation Area east of Barstow.
The two beaches cannot be legally padlocked under California's Coastal Act. State Parks Director Ruth Coleman said they will remain open for the public to walk on the sand, but that bathrooms would be locked and there would be no permanent lifeguards or rangers patrolling them.
Brown's decision in May 2011 to close 70 of the state's 280 state parks to save $22 million set off a storm of public criticism. Because the amount of proposed savings was so small -- less than two-tenths of one percent of the state's $15.7 billion deficit -- some political pundits called it a gimmick to convince middle-class voters that the state was in such dire straits that they should approve Brown's proposed tax increase on the November ballot.
"The biggest issue we've heard from the public -- the most calls, emails, questions and concerns on an environmental issue in the 10 years I've worked here -- is not high-speed rail. It's not global warming. It's people concerned about the closing of state parks," said Jim Metropulos, with the Sierra Club California.
"The money this would have saved was a pittance. Budget dust. And it should never have been proposed."
Any political benefit Brown hoped to gain was lost when private donors, nonprofit groups, corporations and cities stepped forward to provide money to keep many of the parks off the closure list.
In March, for example, Castle Rock State Park, which straddles the Santa Clara-Santa Cruz County line, was saved with a $250,000 donation from the Sempervirens Fund, a nonprofit group in Los Altos that preserves redwood trees. Garrapata State Park in Big Sur, with stunning beaches and scenic, hilly hiking trails, was kept open earlier this week in a deal with the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District.
"The general public stepped up across California. That is the exciting thing here," said Laird, who added that the donations came "in the nick of time."
Still, most of the deals to keep the parks open provide for only 12 months of funding.
"State parks are out of intensive care, but still on life support," said state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto. "The situation is still tenuous."
Part of the reason the state was able to keep the parks open this year was that on Wednesday, the governor, as part of approving the state budget, allowed $10 million to be shifted from accounts for energy programs and off-highway vehicle recreation to state parks. He also approved moving $13 million in bond funding from Proposition 84 and Proposition 40 to state parks to fund projects that can help parks generate more revenue.
Both ideas came in a bill by Simitian and Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Napa. Their measure provided $41 million from various sources, including water funds, but Brown vetoed $31 million of the spending.
Overall, Brown used his line-item veto to trim $195 million to help balance the state budget he signed, including funding for childcare programs and scholarships to help low-income children attend private schools.
With the bond funds, Coleman said, parks will raise more money by such methods as building cabins that can be rented and installing electronic kiosks where campers and hikers can use credit cards to pay, rather than the state having rangers collect the money.
Environmental groups said Brown made a mistake in trying to close parks. In the wake of the failure in 2010 of Proposition 21, which would have provided a windfall for state parks through an $18 annual fee on vehicle registrations, they called on Brown to begin a new effort to find a long-term funding source to fill open ranger jobs, fund $1.2 billion maintenance backlog, and bring a once-proud system of redwoods, beaches and historic sites back to health.
"This is a one-year Band-Aid," said Ruskin Hartley, president of Save the Redwoods League. "The underlying issue -- the chronic neglect and underfunding -- gets deeper every year."
