As We See It: State park problems run deep

The state parks should serve the people. In recent years, the number of gang bangers and substance abusers has increased dramatically. It's only fair that the parks should serve them, too.

Headline not particularly representative of the article.

Is there a state budget yet? Is anybody even talking about budget or is everybody on vacation?
Hellooooooo! Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman, media of CA: What the h-e-double-L is going on with California's budget?

Raise the fees for park use where there's a sufficient demand for access to pay for running them. Shut down parks where there isn't in the interim and allow people with self-contained trailers to volunteer to live in them and watch over them. This can all be reversed when the economy and the state budget become realigned. However if the federal government wants to stimulate the economy, paying for needed improvements to California parks is one way to do it, although I am not in favor of paying for excessive planning transactional costs. I want people who actually build things that will be useful in the future to have jobs, not the vast paper-pushing bureaucracies.

Don't tax all registered vehicle owners so that those with the leisure time and proximity can get a free ride on backs of working people who may not go at all. Fee financed services are the most fair. Taking money for some to finance the leisure activities of others isn't.

Yet another Jennifer Squiresism:

"The park system has become a whipping post in the ongoing budget crisis"

Whipping post: A post to which a prisoner's hands are tied before he is whipped as punishment (the prisoner is whipped, not the post).

Whipping boy: A playmate of a prince who is whipped instead because the prince cannot be punished (the boy is whipped, not the prince).

disabuser wrote:

Don't tax all registered vehicle owners so that those with the leisure time and proximity can get a free ride on backs of working people who may not go at all.

Correct!

What a nightmare using State Parks will become on weekends when ALL Californians have free access.

Fees are self-selecting; parks will be overrun and trampled under this registered vehicle owners funding idea.

Plus, the low $18 a year is a come on...this fee will be raised continuously!!!

Example: To launch your boat in Tahoe, the MANDATORY mussel inspection fee is already $180 !!!!

Save Tahoe for the rich!!!

FEES or TAXES; GOV'T IS RAPACIOUS & fees are much EASIER TO RAISE THAN TAXES!!!

Marcos Breton: Ho-hum, taxpayers ripped off again

By Marcos Breton
mbreton@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/28/2919195/marc...

LOVED THIS ARTICLE ABOUT THE EVERYDAY FLEECING OF CALIFORNIA TAXPAYERS, VOTING YES ON 21 WILL ACCELERATE THE RAPE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR!!

No on 21.

There is zero connection between cars and state parks. Why not put a 25¢ tax on each pair of shoes sold to pay for the parks? Most people wear shoes when visiting the parks, so there is the connection. Think about how much this fee could raise.

Sound stupid? No more so than the plan to add a tax for only those that own cars to pay state park costs for everyone that does not own a car.

Pay to play. The parks system has worked just fine for decades with the funding structure in place. Let's see an audit and figure out how to make it work within the current system.

NO on 21. No on the Sentinel editorial staff. These fools have never met a tax or boondoggle project they didn't like (rail purchase).

The article doesn't mention that if Prop 21 passes, the State washes its hands of the $1.3B backlog, which it has instead been spent on pet projects. As the parks would have a 'reliable revenue source', that source would have to increase in order to address the backlog.$18 is a silly number anyway, why not round it up to $20? I'll give it a year.

It also doesn't mention that $3 of the $18 doesn't even GO to parks - that gets distributed to public agency grants for urban waterways, DFG, the Ocean Protection Council,'state conservancies', and the Wildlife Conservation Board.
Hmmm, 15% to fund 'boards and councils' and urban waterways - those don't sound like State Parks to me.

It also doesn't mention that it frees up several hundred million to spend on pet programs. That's right - we've been paying for our parks all along, but that money will now go elsewhere. You'd think with the parks being in such dire straights that we'd keep spending General Fund monies to repair them. Which would make sense - if the goal was really the health of the parks.

NO on the bait and switch money grab.

Why not simply give back the land to my people, from whom you stole it long ago? Maybe we will let you visit. Maybe not. Maybe we will charge you money. Maybe not. That is the same as the current state parks policy, isn't it?

May the Spirit of Earth Mother tie your whipping boy to the whipping post.

The sad truth is that though state parks have not increased much in numbers or acreage, the bloated, mismanaged bureaucracy is bankrupt by its exhorbitant expenditures on non-essential programs such as interpretive services, paid entertainment for campers, and junior guard programs. Another sad truth is that ad-hoc non-profit agencies, such as "Friends of State Parks", skim 60 % of kiosk fees derived from day users and campers and divert those monies to non-essential museums and interpreters. This kiosk revenue should go directly for maintenance and capital expenditures at each park.
Meanwhile, areas historically open to the day-using public have been devoted to the gentry r.v. crowd. The ramada at New Brighton is closed to day users, as is the entire right side of Seacliff Beach. Too much space and staff attention is dedicated to campgrounds, not to the hordes who use the beach all day. Private hosts tend to exercise undue authority, another move toward park privatization, especially in the campgrounds.
These arbitrary closures at these parks in the last few years forbodes a deleterious tendency for state parks to limit coastal access, and the state parks should hold public hearings before conducting such dramatic changes of access to the parks. Does anyone know whether state parks is required to submit its plans to the California Coastal Commission before it closes certain sections to the public?

Tiens tiens! People turn out to be smarter than I thought. It is truly remarkable that there is so much opposition to such a stupid proposition, and often for the right reasons.
Sit back, close your eyes, and picture a post-Prop. 21 Saturday at Sunset Beach. Oh, that's right; you wouldn't even try to approach that beach, because the homeless encampment has occupied all of the limited parking for years.
Your time might be better spent viewing the gangs vie for turf at Seacliff, or visiting the New Brighton Heroin Market, so easily hidden among the trees.

If you love the parks, support the use fees; double them if necessary.

State parks are an important driver of our state's economy. On average, state park visitors spend about $58 in neighboring communities each time they visit a park. That means more money flowing to small businesses, more money to create local jobs and more money in our communities. I would say that's worth my .05 cents a day.
All of that doesn't even begin to talk about the numerous other benefits and opportunities that parks create, like learning opportunities for our kids, affordable family gathering spots and preservation of one-of-a-kind habitats.
Prop. 21 is a sensible solution...the fee can't be raised by the legislature, it can't be raided and it has specific oversights to protect the investment.

OXY wrote:

State parks are an important driver of our state's economy. On average, state park visitors spend about $58 in neighboring communities each time they visit a park. That means more money flowing to small businesses, more money to create local jobs and more money in our communities. I would say that's worth my .05 cents a day.
All of that doesn't even begin to talk about the numerous other benefits and opportunities that parks create, like learning opportunities for our kids, affordable family gathering spots and preservation of one-of-a-kind habitats.
Prop. 21 is a sensible solution...the fee can't be raised by the legislature, it can't be raided and it has specific oversights to protect the investment.

Nobody is saying don't fund the parks. What we're saying is that we don't want to pay for them twice while the State squanders the money from us that used to go to the parks. What we're saying is we don't want to create homeless havens with their associated problems.

Reality Check wrote:

<quoted text>
Nobody is saying don't fund the parks. What we're saying is that we don't want to pay for them twice while the State squanders the money from us that used to go to the parks. What we're saying is we don't want to create homeless havens with their associated problems.

I don't quite understand how you feel it would create homeless havens. Prop. 21 only provides free, day-use admission for registered California vehicles...everyone else will continue to pay. Actually, with the increase in park staff and more rangers, there would be better public safety resources to address issues in parks.

OXY wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't quite understand how you feel it would create homeless havens. Prop. 21 only provides free, day-use admission for registered California vehicles...everyone else will continue to pay. Actually, with the increase in park staff and more rangers, there would be better public safety resources to address issues in parks.

Are you local?(Santa Cruz) Three trees is a perfect example. A parking area on a beautiful, scenic portion of West Cliff Drive that was turned into a defacto campground by a group of shiftless, drug dealing miscreants. Yes, they'd leave at night, but every morning until late in the evening they'd take over the place, making the path miserable and displacing other users and tourists.
Perhaps the homeless issue is only local, but the paying twice is not. We ALREADY pay for the parks. For the powers that be to suddenly say that all the other programs are more important is just wrong. They just know that we would never vote to fund their pet projects, so they take our hundreds of millions, and then collect again in the name of the parks.

Reality Check wrote:

The article doesn't mention that if Prop 21 passes, the State washes its hands of the $1.3B backlog, which it has instead been spent on pet projects. As the parks would have a 'reliable revenue source', that source would have to increase in order to address the backlog.$18 is a silly number anyway, why not round it up to $20? I'll give it a year.
It also doesn't mention that $3 of the $18 doesn't even GO to parks - that gets distributed to public agency grants for urban waterways, DFG, the Ocean Protection Council,'state conservancies', and the Wildlife Conservation Board.
Hmmm, 15% to fund 'boards and councils' and urban waterways - those don't sound like State Parks to me.
It also doesn't mention that it frees up several hundred million to spend on pet programs. That's right - we've been paying for our parks all along, but that money will now go elsewhere. You'd think with the parks being in such dire straights that we'd keep spending General Fund monies to repair them. Which would make sense - if the goal was really the health of the parks.
NO on the bait and switch money grab.

The growth of the tax being proposed on vehicles to allow park users free access to the parks has already happened. There's history of that from its inception to the current proposition, which people would know about if there was such thing as journalism in California's newspaper industry.

Two Dogs wrote:

Why not simply give back the land to my people, from whom you stole it long ago? Maybe we will let you visit. Maybe not. Maybe we will charge you money. Maybe not. That is the same as the current state parks policy, isn't it?
May the Spirit of Earth Mother tie your whipping boy to the whipping post.

please, get a grip on reality.
it is GOD's property, not your pagan people.
we are on it, because He wants us here. got it?!
if you didn't insult Him when He sent the friendly Fathers to help you, you would be one of us, and not some ignorant malcontent.