State Parks on the 4th of July

On July 4 every year, Americans celebrate Independence day. This falls almost bang in the middle of summer which means most people enjoy the day barbecuing, going to the beach or pool and in many cases camping out for the weekend.

This year we joined many others, camping at Leo Carrillo State beach park in Malibu, California. This is one of the beaches and parks slated to be closed should the State of California stops funding the parks, which they are proposing to do in order to cut their deficit.

As I was checking in to our camp site I was interviewed by KTLA news (a Los Angeles news channel) about the possible closure of the State Parks. I have talked about the State parks closing in a previous post (Saving California's State Parks) and that from our understanding the State may actually lose out on tax revenue by not funding the parks. I put this across to the interviewer and hope that I was able to make an impression.

The interview reminded me that we need to be vigilant and active to ensure we can continue to enjoy our environment and pass on this enjoyment to our children.

• We need to go out camping and make use of our State Parks.
• We need to join in at beach clean ups and similar environmental clean up opportunities.
• We need to let our selected Representatives, Senators and Congressman, both Federal and State, know that we support strong laws protecting the environment and reducing carbon outputs.
• We need to reduce our own waste in whatever ways we can.

Back to the weekend - we enjoyed a few days surfing, barbecuing and hanging out with friends on the California beaches. The camp site was full, which hopefully means the park was able to raise enough of its own revenue to support itself this long weekend. We hope that next year the state beaches, such as Leo Carrillo will still be open and that we can enjoy more of these fun occasions and not just on the 4th of July weekend. We have bought our annual state park pass, which means we feel confident that California's congress will understand the importance of the parks and keep funding them and gaining the tax revenue that the parks bring in.

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Save California's State Parks!

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to cut funding to 80% of California's State Parks. We live in Southern California and regularly enjoy the State Parks. We head to them to surf, camp out and go hiking. We plan numerous vacation trips around visiting these State parks and would hate to lose any of them.

California is in a budget crises, a big part of which is because of reduced sales tax revenue. People are buying less, as they try to save more and therefore the state is losing money from sales tax. Most of those people who used to spend their money at the shopping centers are most likely spending more time at the California State Parks. In a study published in 2008, the University of California-Berkeley found that for every $1 in public money spent on state parks, $2.35 is returned to the state in taxes from tourism and other revenue they generate.


It therefore seems to us, that California can only gain tax revenue by keeping the State Parks open and funded. With more Californians taking vacations at home this year and other US State residents also cutting back on their holiday travel, we suspect that the State Parks will be even more popular this year than ever before. Even without funding visitors will come to the parks anyway and enjoy the beaches or redwoods or hiking trails. They will park on the roads outside and walk in. However without funding these parks may need to reduce the number of rangers on duty and these rangers will have a wider area to patrol. This could lead to environmental damage such as fires, vandalism and erosion because of the difficulty the rangers will have in covering a park.

Of course we hope that we can all restrain ourselves from damaging property or causing environmental damage on purpose. But the rangers are there to guide all visitors to the park and are prepared to take the correct action to prevent or reduce problems when they arise.

There must be a better way for California to save money and solve their budget problems. Eliminating funding for the State Parks does not seem to be a good solution and may result in increased spending in the future. You can send a message to the governor and other state legislaters through the Surfrider Action Network at http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/caparks05_09 and tell them not to cut funding to our State Parks.

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