220 state parks could face closure

<p>Sylvia Morgan and Bette Donaldson had no idea they contributed to California’s parks crisis by ignoring the $4 fee envelope at the entrance to Annadel State Park.</p><p>“I thought that’s only for the guys who bring their bikes and horses up here and spend all day,” said Morgan, who live in Santa Rosa and brought her 4-year-old for a stroll in the woods. “I suppose we’d pay up if we realized it was important.”</p><p>Those fees are becoming vitally important with a proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger to eliminate most funding for the state’s parks and put them on on a pay-as-you-go basis.</p><p>Of the state’s 279 parks, 220 would face closure - including Annadel and every other state park in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, from Jack London to Armstrong Woods to the coastal beaches.</p><p>“This is a worst case scenario,” said Roy Stearns, California state parks department spokesman. “If we can do less than this we will try, but under the present proposal this is it.”</p><p>In Mendocino County, according to a state list released late Thursday, state parks that could be shuttered include Mendocino Headlands, Point Cabrillo Lighthouse, Hendy Woods and MacKerricher and Manchester beaches.</p><p>In Lake County, Anderson Marsh near Lower Lake is on the list, while Clear Lake State Park near Kelseyville was spared.</p><p>The governor’s proposal to slash about $70 million from the state’s $150 million general fund allocation for parks is just a part of a much larger state spending reduction proposal that attempts to bridge a $24 billion gap. Another $143.4 million would be saved in the following fiscal year by keeping the parks closed.</p><p>Supporters of parks said they were surprised to learn that the governor’s proposed budget cuts were so broad in their sweep. Just a year ago, many activists thought that a $2 fee increase was sufficient to stave off the governor’s proposals to close six North Coast parks, including Armstrong Woods in Guerneville.</p><p>“It is hard to even know what to say, it is so outrageous,” said Michele Luna, executive director of the Stewards of the Redwoods and Coast, a non-profit that provides volunteers and conducts educational programs in partnership with the state. “It is ludicrous to take away places where people go for solace and recreation during hard economic times.”</p><p>Luna’s group and other park supporters say more fee increases would be counterproductive.</p><p>“You can’t raise fees to a point where you get people to stop coming,” Luna said. </p><p>Many park advocates favor a $10 to $15 surcharge to the vehicle license fee, which they feel would provide parks maintenance with stable funding. The idea of a parks surcharge on non-commercial vehicle licensing gained momentum last year and was introduced, but not acted upon by the Legislature.</p><p>The California Parks Foundation, a non-profit advocacy group for state parks, criticized the governor’s plan as “an ill-conceived idea.”</p><p>“By cutting funding at the levels suggested, it is inevitable that state parks will need to be closed,” said Elizabeth Goldstein, foundation president. “Closing parks not only loses the potential to earn revenues that support that park, but it also causes revenue losses to the local economies in communities that surround state parks.”</p><p>Meanwhile, in Jack London State Park near Glen Ellen, Athena Karavolos and Miles Streb of Sonoma took their 10-month-old daughter Lilly and two Dachshunds on a hike through the historic area because it is one of the few state parks that allows dogs.</p><p>“To me, it was worth the $6 because my dogs can go. I don’t go places where they don’t allow my dogs,” Karavolos said. “If I had to pay more, I don’t know, it is not a place I go more than once a month.”</p>