I don’t have all the details just yet, but I’ve learned that our beloved Henry Coe State Park is among the parks and beaches that would be closed under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget.
Here’s the first draft of the budget story at Mercurynews.com
The state’s in a serious budget hole this time, far worse than the one that helped sweep Arnie into office a few years back. All up and down the state, somebody’s Henry Coe is on the chopping block because folks who live here enjoy the fantasy of having things they don’t have to pay for.
Portola Redwoods is also on the hit list.
This is not an indictment of The Gov. singularly. Our Legislature consistently drags its collective feet each budget year, and wastes an incredible amount of money on programs across the board whose usership doesn’t justify the expense.
The East Bay Regional Park District is also partly (sometimes greatly) in peril. What DOES make a difference is when we send letters, e – mails, and phone calls in a mercilessly compounding number. Such a campaign saved the EBRPD budget a couple of years ago.
If you don’t want the State Parks impacted, take time to sit and write your state assemblymembers and senators. Copy your Federal legislators and senators, because some part of the budget is impacted by Federal mandates and restrictions. Let them know you won’t stand (well, not me anyway!) for much – needed recreational facilities to be jerked around each time they make budget decisions based on their ability to fly during an election campaign.
And if that doesn’t work, do your talking at the ballot box. Support those who support your idea of what’s right. Continually rewarding incompetence for inaction is on us, not them.
Hear! Hear!
Thanks for those reminders to do our part, Bob!
It’s impossible to imagine Coe park being “closed”! The place is a spacious, wild land – ours to enjoy in stewardship, for the benefit of every living spirit that runs through all things – in perpetua!
Sign up now as a donating member of the State Parks association. Write those letters. Go hiking and pay the fees. Write more letters. Pray. Hope. Don’t give up the fight!
“folks who live here enjoy the fantasy of having things they don’t have to pay for”
Don’t have to pay for? You’ve got to be kidding. 9.3% of my salary is going someplace (+ another 7% in sales tax)
The problem isn’t in the income side of this equation.
This is a rather rude thing to find out about as Henry Coe is my favorite Bay Area park period. I just wrote one of my State Reps about this and I will write the rest of them. I hope others will too. If you don’t know who your rep is, you can find out at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
I personally would be willing to pay more to visit Henry Coe (though I would want the money to be used for the park and staff). I am also a member of the Pine Ridge Association and I even donated a little extra to the park when I renewed my membership.
I fear most people in the Bay Area know little about Henry Coe and probably wouldn’t miss it if it were gone. I don’t think ignorance is really bliss in this case. We would be poorer without Henry Coe.
Fedak is right! But I agree that making the governor a scapegoat is missing the point. No question there is a tremendous amount of political corruption in this state. This is not really the appropriate place for a whole dissertation, and besides I don’t really have time right now, and I just ate. But with all the prosperity in this state, and you consider the taxation, lottery, indian casinos, and such? And they want to cut money from education, parks, release criminals, etc. It just boggles my mind.
But I will also completely agree that the high track is the way. Stewardship, letter writing and other forms of intelligent activism is the best strategy for preserving the park systems we love.
I regard it as either humorous or tragic that so many people forget that “their taxes” are bringing the direct and indirect benefits that they have so come to expect that they seem to imagine that they are there without cost: roads, schools, fire and police, and so forth.
To presume that our “budget problem” is the result of “corruption” is simply fantasy.
One of the major issues in a state like California is that the funding resource fluctuates so wildly that it really is just about impossible to predict the tax income from year to year.
> To presume that our “budget problem” is the result of “corruption” is simply fantasy.
I would use the term “incompetence” rather than “corruption” and the California public is every bit as responsible as the government.
Mananging to a fluctuating budget is not impossible.
>“I regard it as either humorous or tragic that so many people forget that “their taxes” are bringing the direct and indirect benefits that they have so come to expect that they seem to imagine that they are there without cost: roads, schools, fire and police, and so forth.”<
I don’t think anyone is even remotely suggesting that such services are, or should be, “free” or “without cost”. That’s pure nonsense. On the contrary, I believe that revenues should be sufficient in this state right now to handle it. California is one of the richest states in the union. Other states do much better with substantially less.
OK, I’ll restate my earlier post: To presume that our “budget problem” is the result of “incompetence” is simply fantasy.
This is not to say that some portion of the budget of every family, company, state, church, you name it, is lost to incompetence, but in reality it is a tiny, tiny portion of the whole.
Regarding “sufficiency of revenues,” revenues have dropped precipitously below the levels predicted for a level of funding that was not extravagant to begin with. It isn’t that the expenses have increased, but you knew that, right?
And a look at the actual data show that California consistently ranks way down the list in funding for such things as education, even in comparison to much poorer states.
Our largest problem dates back to the infamous proposition 13. At the time (must have been early ’80s, right?) the belief was that this was tax relief for the poor individual property owner. In the long term it hasn’t turned out that way at all. The primary beneficiaries were the state’s largest corporate landowners who often keep their properties for many decades and, as a result of that proposition, have had their tax rates held way below what the rest of us who have purchased property more recently pay.
It strikes me as very strange that no one wants to talk about that – a sort of political third rail I suppose.
Dan
And how is prop 13 not representative of gross incompetence on the part of the California populace? Government by referendum, particularly on spending items, is an absolutely horrible idea.
The fact that we rank low on the list for funding of key services when we rank high on the tax burden list is, in itself, indicitive of the mismanagement of CA tax revenue.
Awaiting the tax hikes that are the inevitable outcome of all this…
The only good example of pure fantasy I can see around here is believing that incompetency, greed, fraud, and abuse do not exist.
corruption and incompetence do exist and they do contribute to inflating the cost of government, no doubt about it. the remedy for these is vigilance and adquate management practices. but I am convinced that bloat and process inefficiency contributes at least as much to the current fiscal emergency.
I for one would like to know how many effective pennies out of each of our tax dollars actually gets applied to support services and solve problems. not very damn many I suspect.
the current problem is a not entirely due to cost management however. clearly there is a revenue problem as well. but why? did our illustrious Government plan on spending all the money collected, without regard for accrual in the event that revenues realized were below revenues expected? who runs a business like this?
anyway, it is not suprising to me that we are in this situation. this budget crew has never gotten it together on time. and we, The People continue to shortcut the legislative process with Initiatives that further encumber the Government. no, I am not a bit suprised by the circumstances.
but as for further increasing middle class taxes? I don’t think so, no.
what we really need to do is to fundamentally improve the performance of Governement, obviously, because an efficient and effective organization is always cheaper to operate than a obese and sluggish organization. and there are a number of simple actions we need to take to get there. just off the top of my head here are a few: we should kill obligations foisted upon our State through unfunded federal mandates, we should send the United States of America an invoice for National Border services, we should stop the practice of buying debt as much as possible, you know, take the cure, we should fire those unnecessary “workers” hiding inside this Government, we should review our requirements plans and, as Bob, so clearly states, we should PARTICIPATE IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND IN THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE COUNTY AND CITY IN WHICH WE LIVE AND ACCEPT THE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES ATTENDANT TO CITIZENSHIP.
wow, what a concept. thanks, Bob. of course Bob, who has demonstrated to all of us that he has the stones to muscle a wheelchair up beyond 14,000′ certainly understands stuff like this better than most.
whatever. we need to demand higher value for our tax dollar, period, and, since we need to trim the fat off of this pig, we should all stop ordering bacon.
but shutting down the Parks and other recreational assets of the People is just ridiculous. it is counter-productive. it is foolishness. re-creation is an important component of personal/public/community health. John Muir correctly concluded that “wilderness is necessary”. and it is. it is not an optional item. and though we tend to organize ourselves like termite mounds we are not blind insects. we do not have a Queen. our wings do not fall off. we all have pincers.
if funding fails we can volunteer in our local communities to support the Parks. we can operate shovels. we can manage and monitor the trails. there are plumbers among us; we can figure out how to to keep the pipes clear. we are not crippled. we can do stuff.
and frankly, I think that organizing ourselves in support of our Parkd just might do us all some good.
after all, at some point we’re just going to have to stand up like men anyway. and there will never be a better time to do that than right now.
think about it.
john