Close to Home: Open our coastal state parks, especially Fort Ross

It is past time for the California Parks and Recreation Department to open our parks and restore services on the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts.

The most egregious closure is the closure of Fort Ross State Historical Park on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of every week, even now during the busy tourist season of summer and autumn. This park is one of two important tourist attractions on the northern Sonoma County and southern Mendocino County coast. The other attraction is the Point Arena Lighthouse, which is open every day of the year, except Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The closure of Fort Ross hurts our local economy.

Fort Ross showcases a historic Russian-era fort compound that has been designated as a National Historic Landmark. People from all around the world come to visit it.

To say that people can park outside the locked gates and walk in fails to recognize the danger of parking along narrow Highway 1 where the speed limit is 55 mph and logging trucks often pass by.

Inside the locked gates is a spacious, safe parking area. State parks should remove the chains and allow people to park where it is safe to do so.

The doors to the museum, gift shop and bathrooms in the visitor center are locked every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, even though Fort Ross Conservancy has staff at the visitor center on those days.

Plus, students are currently visiting the fort as part of the Environmental Living Program, even on the days the park is closed.

We have been told that state parks needs to save money by not having someone man the kiosk to charge for cars driving in. Yet there is an iron ranger available for collecting the fee.

State parks is losing money by closing the park three days a week.

We have read that there is a moratorium on closing parks. Closing Fort Ross State Historic Park for three days of every week is not a service reduction. It’s a park closure.

Here on the coast, we have felt the many state parks closures and cutbacks in services quite keenly.Vista Point at the top of the Jenner Grade still has the bathrooms locked and has for years.

Reef Campground, closed for many months, finally reopened for part of the year, and we’d like to see it stay open. Russian Gulch, a beach south of Fort Ross with no services, has inexplicably been chained closed for more than five years now.

There are other public access spots chained off, bathrooms locked and trash cans removed, including at Manchester State Park.

It’s high time to restore these services.

These are our state parks. We cherish them and what they bring into our lives.

State Parks Director Lisa Mangat and Liz Burko, superintendent of the Sonoma-Mendocino Coast District, should reconsider these ill-advised decisions and keep our coastal parks open.

Richard and Jeanne Jackson are 20-year residents of Anchor Bay, north of Gualala. Jeanne Jackson writes a weekly nature column for the Independent Coast Observer and is author of “Mendonoma Sightings Throughout the Year,” published in 2014.