Save California’s State Parks!
http://iccpaix.org/wpblog/get-involved/calendar/action~agenda/tag_ids~58,57/request_format~html/ 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 in public money spent on state parks, .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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