Closing 80% of state parks? What's a tourist to do? (San Diego: construction, salary)

[kanhawk]

I read the governor is proposing closing 80% of state parks due to the budget crisis. If this happens, will tourists still be able to access the parks at least by parking at the entrance and walking in or will access be completely prohibited?

[goozer]

I don't believe for a minute that they will actually go through with the plan to close all of the parks that they announced may be closed. Some will close, that is almost certain. But not on the scope they suggest. I think it is something of a ploy to draw attention to how bad things are in the CA budget. Maybe attract some federal bailout attention. In San Diego County, Palomar, Torrey Pines, and Anza-Borrego are among the parks on the list. Those three parks are the crown jewels of San Diego County's state parks. Eliminate them, and you might as well start closing down the beach and the zoo as well. Leave nothing for tourists but the weather?!?!?

[Widowmaker2k]

1. It's not going to happen. Last year, a similar idea was proposed, but with less park closures, and failed. Even if it did pass, it will only save something $140 million, out a $24 billion deficit.

2. Even if it did go through, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Many of the state parks on the list couldn't possibly be losing money. Take Bodie for example. I don't know how many of you have visited there before, but there couldn't be more than 4 or 5 year round employees working there. Assuming they make ~$60,000 per year, that's a max of $300,000 in salary. There is virtually no maintenance or upkeep fees, as the state keeps the town in a state of 'arrested decay', that is, they do minor repairs here and there, but accept that the place is falling apart, and don't do any major renovations or construction. Now, take into account that Bodie gets 200,000 visitors per year, and each visitor pays at least 5 dollars, and you can see that the park is making far more than it costs. It would make much more sense to close Bodie half of the year (for the winter, when there is 10 feet of snow on the ground and there are no visitors anyway), then it would to close it permanently.

What does this tell us? The Governor is trying to scare people into accepting higher taxes by threatening to shut down highly visible state run programs (the state parks). I'm a Libertarian, and I fully accept that some parks absolutely need to be closed, and others should be sold off to the private sector, but closing 80 percent of the state parks makes very little sense, especially considering that most of them make money for the state and the communities surrounding where they are located. If we're going to cut the fat out of the state park system, we first need to cut down on the number of administration and oversight positions, not shut down individual parks. I know this, Arnold knows this, and so do most of people of California, it's just a move that the government is making out of spite because the people shot down their tax hikes.