Have Funky Fridays at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park gotten too big?
Steve Meacham and his wife, Christine, had settled in for a recent Friday night show at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park when the Sonoma couple noticed something odd. People were being turned away from the outdoor amphitheater, despite the hillside venue being only half-full.
“We had no idea what was going on,” Steve Meacham said.
The couple are regular attendees at a summer concert series known as Funky Fridays, which was started in 2013 by a Kenwood couple who wanted to save the park from closure during a budgetary crisis. The concert series has blossomed into the park’s largest fundraising event, drawing hundreds each week for live music and barbecue. But suddenly, and without warning, the gates were being shut.
Behind the scenes, concerns had been raised about whether the concerts’ popularity was coming at the expense of Sugarloaf’s pristine environmental setting. A state association representing current and former state park employees contacted officials at California State Parks, who in turn acted swiftly in ordering a cap on attendance at the concerts, starting with the July 24 performance attended by the Meachams.
The result was that dozens of people who had traveled the winding road to reach the park near Kenwood were turned away. A similar scenario played out Friday night, as organizers started turning cars away at about 6:30 p.m., though some people could be observed driving past a sign announcing the event was full and entering the park anyway.
The schism reflects age-old tensions at regional, state and national parks over how to balance landscape protection with the development of amenities and attractions to serve visitors. Nationally, the debate has played out on the grandest stages - in Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, where grand hotels cater to guests and diversions such as winter snowmobiling and helicopter tours have delighted thousands while raising the hackles of conservationists.
Closer to home, smaller-scale disputes have taken place about the uses of lands set aside by Sonoma County taxpayers.
In the case of Funky Fridays, neither the park’s managers nor State Parks officials raised any red flags as the event’s popularity grew beyond what organizers originally envisioned and more revenue poured in. But now panic has set in, leaving the future of the outdoor concert series in doubt.
The cap of 125 people represents less than half of the attendance for Funky Friday events. A July 3 concert drew 511 people, establishing a new record, according to event organizers. They lament the timing of the state’s decision, which comes midway through the summer concert series after acts already have been booked. The series concludes Labor Day weekend.
“We’re devastated by this,” said Bill Myers, who along with his wife, Linda Pavlak, started Funky Fridays. “Our whole objective has been to make money for the park, and we’ve been doing that through our marketing and advertising. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
Supporters say events like Funky Fridays and Broadway Under the Stars in Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen represent outside-the-box approaches to raising revenue for parks, at a time when the system is faced with deep structural deficits, including a maintenance backlog estimated at more than $2 billion. Parks Forward, a blue-ribbon task force commissioned to make recommendations for overhauling the state’s moribund parks system, encouraged such novel approaches to fundraising in its final report issued in January.
Predictably, those lofty goals collide with other concerns, such as the impacts of events like Funky Fridays on a park’s natural or cultural resources. More people means more vehicles and more services to support all that funkiness.
The situation also shines a spotlight on the nonprofit organizations, private concessionaires and other groups that have assumed higher-profile roles in the state’s taxpayer-supported parks. Some view the dust-up over Funky Fridays as evidence of entrenched interests, including public employee unions, pushing back on these arrangements as acts of self-preservation, or to influence labor negotiations.
Sugarloaf, Jack London and Austin Creek State Recreation Area in Guerneville are managed by a consortium of local nonprofit groups, which stepped in under a law that allowed the state to negotiate with outside agencies to try to keep open 70 state parks that had been slated to shut in 2012. California State Parks maintains ownership of the sites.
In Sonoma County, the nonprofits expanded entertainment options at outdoor venues to generate public interest and to help cover operating costs. Profits from Funky Fridays doubled in the first two years and were projected to do so again this season. Before the recent controversy, profits were on track to reach $50,000 this season.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: