70 State Parks to close July 1, 2012 - we did not pass the State tax to fund

Not passing taxes may be expected to have consequences.  Excerpt from Mercury News/Paul Rogers, 1/16/12....."Now, as California Gov. Jerry Brown moves forward with a plan to close 70 state parks by July 1, environmental leaders, political scientists and budget experts say "the Washington Monument syndrome" appears to be at work again.

Hanging-out at a State Beach which may close

Closing a quarter of California's century-old state park system will save only $22 million -- two-tenths of 1 percent of California's $9.2 billion deficit. Attempts at closing parks in other states have resulted in costly vandalism. And business leaders say the closures will cost rural communities and the state millions of dollars in lost taxes from tourism. So why do it?  Seeing beloved beaches, campsites and redwood forests padlocked during the summer could help persuade recalcitrant California residents that the state's budget problems are real -- and make them more likely to vote for Brown's tax-hike initiative in November, political experts say.

...In recent months, nine parks -- including Henry Coe in Morgan Hill, Tomales Bay in Marin County and Mono Lake -- have been removed from the closure list after private donations or federal funds were secured to keep them open. But Palmer said it isn't likely Brown will decide to keep the other parks on the list from closing.

In November 2010, voters rejected a plan to keep all the parks open when they turned down Proposition 21, which would have raised vehicle license fees $18 a year to double the state parks budget.  Now environmentalists who raised $10 million for that campaign say Californians are about to see the consequences of the measure's failure and Brown's plan. "It doesn't strike me as most thoughtful way to make public policy, but there are a lot of things government does that people take for granted," said Mike Sweeney, executive director of the California Nature Conservancy. "And we may just be in an era where we may need to have a reminder of what services the government provides."  Read more.  Picture is one corner of Twin Lakes State Beach, Santa Cruz, from Friends of the Harbor Group. .          

Posted by Kathy Meeh