With the green metal gates padlocked shut three days a week, Sonoma County residents are getting a preview of what it would mean to close Annadel State Park.
At first glance, closing the 5,000-acre park isn't much different than keeping it open.
The parking lot is closed, but that's hardly an obstacle at a park that so many patrons enter via uncontrolled trailheads, including a path from Sonoma County's Spring Lake Regional Park and others from Santa Rosa neighborhooods. Many users already arrive on foot, riding a bicycle or atop a horse.
But closing Annadel, or any park, is more than locking the gate and ceasing to collect a $6 entry fee for cars.
As park users and others pointed out at a legislative hearing in Santa Rosa last week, there are costs that can be foreseen but can't be easily calculated. Facilities will fall into disrepair, and closed parks will be easy targets for vandals and could become havens for transients. Parts of some parks already have been taken over by illicit marijuana growers, and, without rangers present, the problem surely will spread. Add to that the prospect of litigation.
None of that is inexpensive, which explains why a park as heavily used as Annadel is marked for closure. According to the state, annual operating costs are $570,000, but the park generates only about $17,500 a year in entry fees.
Annadel is one of 70 state Parks and Recreation Department facilities slated to close a year from now because of budget cutbacks. The closure list includes about two dozen other parks in the North Bay and on up the North Coast, including Jack London and Petaluma Adobe state historic parks, Austin Creek State Recreation Area and Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County.
Because it would be difficult to prevent access to most of the parks on the list, some people believe the announced closures are just an example of cynical budget politics on the part of Gov. Jerry Brown.
However, it's tough to justify fully funding the state park system while reducing benefits for the elderly, poor and disabled and cutting the school calendar for a second straight year.
Moreover, none of the revenue from the temporary tax extensions sought by Brown is earmarked for state parks, and a $33 million spending cut already has been approved and signed into law.
Some hope Annadel will be spared since the National Park Service director has informed state officials that they can't close 16 parks, including Annadel, that receive some federal funding. But that may be a bad bet. State officials say they're exploring options, such as the midweek closures now in effect at Annadel, Jack London and the Petaluma Adobe, to satisfy their counterparts in Washington.
Meanwhile, efforts are under way to allow local governments and nonprofit groups to take over some parks. But many of them are facing their own financial problems, and parks are hardly alone in hoping for help from philanthropists.
If the parks are to stay open, and we hope they do, eventually we all need to pitch in.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: