Chino Hills State Park proposed for closure (Threads merged)

Saw this on the OCR. Bummer.

http://greenoc.freedomblogging.com/2009/05/29/chino-hills-state-park-proposed-for-closure/8077/

Chino Hills State Park near Orange County is one of 220 state parks proposed for closure, a response to the state’s deepening budget crisis.
The park would not be sold, but instead would be “shuttered,” its gates locked, and placed on “caretaker” status, said Roy Stearns, spokesman for California State Parks.
No parks within Orange County are proposed for closure.
Stearns said the proposal must be approved by the legislature, but that the recent failure of budget initiatives at the polls leaves little choice.
“Without some kind of additional funding for the parks system, this looks like it could be a certainty,” Stearns said.

 

I wish i could say this is coming as a surprise. Unbelievable, pathetic, disgusting.

What a waste.

 

what does that mean? the trail is no longer maintained? How much mullah are they saving anyways? POLITICIANS!

 

Would that mean that it would be trespassing to cross the gates if locked? Or would it be enter at your own risk type of deal?

 

i'm guessing that it means we won't be able to ride there any more.

 

They don't do trail maintenance at CHSP. If it's ever done, it's by volunteers.

How they'd save much more than negligible funds by 'shuttering' the park is beyond me.

 

Again Politicians don't really seem to be representing the people. The first thing they cutback are things that will inconvenience us the most. Then they try to scare you by threatening to cut back on police services. Then cutting back on the children by cutting school budgets...oh the horror of it all....like they have done such a good job! How much are they really going to save by closing the gate to a parking lot or a campground? Are they going to give back the money to people that bought yearly State parking passes?

Instead of having a election to raise taxes they should have let the people choose what of the hundreds of state agencies we are not willing to fund with taxes money anymore or maybe capping the salaries of state workers....better yet pay-cuts and shorter work weeks.

This is just payback for them not getting the tax increases during the last special election. Just plain STUPID...yep changes we can believe in!

Dean

 

Where do I apply for my Adventure Pass refund? :?:

 

...!!!:-k...... i still ride....

 

There is no talk about laying off Rangers. My bet is that they will enforce a no trespass policy. Remember the goal is to extort more tax money from us. State Parks could easily be run by unpaid volunteers, example is the number of fire lookouts still maintained and run by volunteers.

Dean

 

thats lame... but hardly unforeseen.

screw that

 

Wait, so they don't lay off rangers?

Just so I understand this correctly - the rangers remain on the payroll, but they just lock up the park and we can't use it? How does this possibly save anything? There is no revenue for park usage, since the park is closed. There can't be more than negligible cost for keeping the park open as it is, since nothing ever gets done there and the park facilities (i.e. visitor center) are never open. They can shut off the water for the campground, which they probably won't anyway.

I just can't possibly see how this would save money at all.

 

that's exactly what I thought. There's probably a bunch of programs "budgeted". May be some of them are really run - things we may not see like counting tracks and scat, studying nature, you know.

But the biggest ticket item has got to be the payroll. If they don't cut that they won't save anything.

Yet again I'm trying to be rational... my bad.

 

My guess is that Rangers are to become caretakers and/or shifted to other parks. Who else is going to save the Yellow Legged Forest Frog?

Dean

 

Good point, but...these days I'd be very surprised if those weren't trimmed from the budget long ago. More often, that's the sort of thing done either by grad students paid via research grants, or some sort of federal or other outside funding. I understand what you're saying, but I just can't see the numbers making sense here.

 

let's not start bashing teachers again

awww, dean...

my school has doubled their api (school report card #) over the last 10 years. test scores have risen steadily statewide over the last 5 (?) years. all this despite the fact that ca ranks near the bottom in funding per pupil.

now they're cutting tutoring and summer school--and increasing class sizes. result: lower test scores, higher drop-out rate, kids graduating w/ poorer skills, increased prison population, etc.

rant off,
doug

 

Same thing happened in Montana a few years ago. The state turned the maintenance of an open recreation area over to a conservancy. All the conservancy ended up doing was maintaining the trail system, emptied trash containers and the other "basic" maintenance.

I wonder if in an urban environment this would be enough - probably not. How much "patrolling" goes on at CHSP now?

 

So park access is more of an inconvenience than cutting police services? I like riding my bike too, but I still have my priorities straight.

And let's not get started on education, this is an immensely complex issue where most people aren't very well informed.

 

Priorities indeed...the problem here isn't priorities, but rather the blatant hipocracy in 'shuttering' a small state park as some sort of financial fix for the state. The type of thinking that puts forth ideas like this one is the problem. It's short term, closed minded thinking - the kind of thinking that got the state into the situation it's now in. It's not the type of thinking that will get us of it.

 

"patrolling" is done by volunteers as does most of the trail work. CHSP does not have a very good volunteers program. Only 2 trail volunteers that I know of. Unlike Chrystal Cove/El Moro where there are plenty to run the gift shop/visitor center(40+), tide pools(34), trail assistance/patrols(22), all done by volunteers. Aliso, Whiting are also parks I volunteer/patrol in. There are at least 10 of us who assist there. CHSP needs to reach out more to the users in that area to get involved. Although I've done trail work there, I've never ridden there and now probably never will.