Vindu Goel, whom I’ve hiked with quite a few times in the past couple years, uses his bully pulpit as Silicon Valley pundit to join the fight to save California parks.

If lawmakers approve the closings, the next logical step is selling off bits and pieces of public land, warns Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation, a non-profit group that raises money to help with various park programs.

She points to Schwarzenegger’s recent support for a proposal to build a toll road through San Onofre State Beach in Southern California. Swaying the governor: $100 million offered to the state by the local agencies proposing the highway.

“It feels like things are up for grabs,” Goldstein said. “They’ve cut the sinew and the fat and the skin. Now we’re down to the bone.”

As the kids like to say, that’s just wrong.

With rising obesity levels, the increased onset of adult diseases like diabetes and hypertension in children, and the general stress of our modern work culture, we need our parks more, not less.

But if we value our parks, we have to prove it to the politicians – and ourselves.

Don’t just fire off a letter or e-mail to the governor and your local legislator. It’s a beautiful holiday weekend. Go out and enjoy a park.

And if you’re out at Henry Coe on Sunday, say hello. I’ll be out there voting with my feet.

You go, Vindu!