If you want to see the giant redwoods, best come this summer. Looks like the Governator’s latest plan is to close all our state parks that aren’t independent money earners 
:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_12488039
Redwolf
Not good, not good at all. 
It’s a two-edged sword too, at least hereabouts. Our area will lose a fair bit of tourist revenue, and the parks themselves are likely to become homeless encampments with no one to patrol them which, among other things, will greatly increase our summer fire danger.
Redwolf
How sad. That is just horrible.
Hmm, not travelling much because of economy. Guess I’ll stay nearby and go to the… d’oh!!
He hung this over our necks last fall as a consequence. I still see no salary freeze or takeback of UC Regents and chancellors or many other bureaucrats. It all seems very punitive to me. And, overall, the parks bring in $2.35 or something for every dollar spent. As long as they are in the green, doesn’t that help the overall economic health of the state? What am I missing here???
Yeah…my first reaction was “he’s pitching a hissy fit because his measures didn’t pass.”
The situation with UC is criminal. As you noted, regents, chancellors and other administrators are still raking it in, while courses are being cut and fees are going through the roof. And it’s not just the Santa Cruz “fluff” courses (“community studies” and such)…I have a friend who is a marine biology professor at UCSC, and her classes were cut last sememster.
I would think it would make a lot more sense financially to keep the parks open. Other than the rangers, most of the people who work in the parks, at least hereabouts, are volunteer docents anyway. And when you think of the tourism the parks bring to the state… Heck, the campgrounds at Henry Cowell and Big Basin are full from March through October! They could raise camping fees by a dollar or so and still fill up the campgrounds…I’d think something like that would make more sense.
And I’d love to know who’s going to pay for the fire crews when illegal campers set the forest on fire (made easier, of course, because there will be no one checking for them…not to mention no one clearing the brush!).
Redwolf
just in case yer feelin’ lonely down there 
It’s not enough that Gov. Christine Gregoire asked the Washington State Parks Department to prepare for a $10 million reduction in their budget for the next two years and the closure of 13 state parks in the process. Now our fiscally challenged governor is asking the Washington State Parks Department to prepare for a $23 million reduction and the mothball of up to 33 parks.
Pretty infuriating stuff here.
sounds like a good time to open more parks to me
California is the world’s tenth largest economy, and is a locus of enormous wealth, power, and influence. Given this, there is no excuse for the state’s constant state of financial crisis. The governments of places much, much poorer than the state of California are capable of delivering and funding a comparable level of services in the public sector. In fact, a great many are doing a lot more for a lot less.
I think that most Californians would agree with you on that. That’s one reason the recent ballot measures failed. Folks are tired of throwing more and more money at Sacramento, only to keep hearing “we have to cut this” or “we can’t do this unless we raise property/automobile/income/sales taxes.”
I don’t know about other parts of the state, but here in Santa Cruz at least part of the problem is that things are way too top-heavy. Take the public schools, for example. They’re laying off teachers and cutting programs right and left here, yet we still have five separate school districts, each with its own paid administrative staff (and we’re one of the smallest counties in the state!). We could easily consolidate into three districts (Mountain, City and South County), or possibly even two (consolidating Mountain and City) and by so doing save lots of teachers and programs. But no one thinks about that.
Redwolf
crushed by bureaucracy!
The Washington State parks managed to pass a budget that keeps the parks open this year: http://www.parks.wa.gov/newsreleases/09-034%20State%20Parks%20Commission%20adopts%202009-11%20budget.doc
provided that a new donation program tied to vehicle license tabs brings in adequate revenue to operate state parks.
Actually, I think precisely the opposite: the problem is the voters and the referendum system in which they can get to make decisions that have serious consequences without having to confront those consequences. Then, you send your reps to the statehouse with conflicting demands, and when they fail to square the circle, you blame them for it.
The people of California have expectations of their government that aren’t merely “unreasonable”, they’re “impossible”.
The powers that be are smart enough to know that most people don’t even read their bills, just pay them, so the public won’t realize the $5 charge for parks is optional.
As a lifelong CA resident, I think s1m0n’s right, here. The referendum system has resulted in: expensive mandates with inadequate funds, hamstringing the legislature in terms of spending and creating/managing a budget, and poor laws that often reflect short-term passion more than long-term thinking. We force lawmakers to spend X billions of dollars on measures passed by referendum, and then tell them to also provide all the other services we expect of government with what’s left over (and there’s not much left over). Sometimes money earmarked for specific projects mandated by referendum sits there unused because the folks in charge of said project can’t spend it fast enough, but because the money’s earmarked it can’t be used for anything else. Sheesh. Sometimes I wonder why we bother with a professional legislature at all.
It all seems extraordinary.
I have a British friend currently living in California and she works a lot with the school as a volunteer fundraiser. I’m amazed that the money she works so hard to get is actually to pay teachers’ salaries and buy books.
In the UK we fund raise for extra computers and playground equipment and if you don’t give the hopscotch is two squares shorter or the printer is black and white. With her, if they don’t raise $17,000 at the Rennaisance Fayre the library closes. Astonishing.
Is is amazing. And another sad thing…often if a teacher doesn’t buy such things as pencils, erasors, paper and crayons our of his or her own pocket, the children have to do without. Some have parents who can afford to buy them for them, but children from poorer families don’t. Teachers have to spend an astonishing amount of their own money to run a classroom. It’s criminal.
Redwolf
I often wonder how many of these things, the popular public programs, are threatened as a distraction. Point at the redwoods, while they pick your back pocket for their own pay raises, knowing that funding will be added at the last minute to cover the popular programs.