The threat of closing Henry W. Coe State Park will inch from
possible to imminent as soon as Gov. Jerry Brown puts pen to paper
on the $86-billion California budget that the governor signed last
week.
The threat of closing Henry W. Coe State Park will inch from possible to imminent as soon as Gov. Jerry Brown puts pen to paper on the $86-billion California budget that the governor signed last week.
The budget that relies on $4 billion more in state revenue and deep cuts to higher education, includes Brown’s plan from March to close 70 of the state’s 278 parks, including the state’s second-largest park (87,000 acres) but one of the least visited (40,000 visitors annually) – Coe Park.
The selection of the parks was based on popularity, revenue potential and ecological and recreational diversity, according to California State Parks spokesman Roy Stearns. It was believed earlier that closures could begin this fall, but according to the current budget it would start in 2012. The 2011-12 fiscal year begins today.
The plan to close 70 state parks has been called “awful and draconian” by Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation. For every dollar that funds state parks, $2.35 is returned to the state’s general fund, according to Goldstein, because of money spent locally at nearby businesses. The California State Parks Foundation said the money used to keep the state’s parks open makes up “less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire state budget.” Closing 70 parks would save $33 million over the next three years.
At Coe – a vast swath of rolling hills and 250 miles of trails open to campers, hikers, mountain bikers, horse-back riders and bird watchers – opened in 1943 and brings in about $100,000 a year in camping and entrance fees.
Under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 220 parks were on the chopping block in 2009 including Coe, but after receiving more than 100,000 calls and emails from the public, his plan fizzled. Now the threat returns more stridently, some argue, than Schwarzenegger’s budget that never actually closed state parks. If the 2011-12 budget passes, Brown will be the first California governor to close state parks as a cost-saving measure.
And so enters the ideas of how to save Coe.
At a meeting of the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Commission, a state government entity that oversees eight off-road parks in the state such as Hollister Hills, a member of the public suggested Coe as the perfect place to fund a new off-highway vehicle park.
While the commission spoke to the difficulty of carrying that out, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility have done some public relations whistle-blowing since that meeting. The California coordinator at PEER, Karen Schambach, said off-highway vehicles should never be included at Coe and should stay within their designated off-highway parks where motorbikes, ATVs and other vehicles are allowed. Schambach pointed to the $60 million surplus of the OHV fund that would effectively save the closure of 70 state parks.
“I’m trying to get this out in the public, if people understood that the parks don’t need to close, that they’re entitled to money that they aren’t getting,” she said earlier this month.
Phil Jenkins, the division chief of the OHV, said it’s not that simple. The OHV’s trust fund which Schambach was referring to is the “green sticker fund” after California’s non-street legal registrations that is funded by taxes on the sale of fuel used in off-road travel – in 2010, that fund was about $65 million. Jenkins said no money from the state general fund goes to OHV, while the OHV is required to put in $10 million a year to the general fund.
The OHV does transfer some money to state parks that have off-highway access, if it doesn’t, the transfer isn’t allowed. The March meeting did bring out off-road enthusiast Kevin Murphy, where he suggested to turn Coe over to off-road vehicles to keep it operating and keep off-road enthusiasts happy.
“Since the state has no real plan or perceived ability to return this money (the $10 million), I think we should be in a good position to take something in fair trade. I think specifically Henry Coe Park would be something we could take in fair trade. Now, I know this is an extremely bold statement, but we need to get bold right now,” said Murphy.
Coe has the dedicated staff of the Pine Ridge Association, an official state park cooperating association formed in 1975, to assist park staff to design and run educational programs for the public. Pine Ridge operates thanks to volunteers, though they do have $30 annual sponsorships for purchase that goes toward annual events.
Santa Clara County produced a report that outlines the feasibility of taking over the park from the state if it were closed. It’s estimated it would cost the county about $1.5 million to operate Coe, which is 33 percent larger than the entire 45,000-acre county park system.
Privatizing state parks or funding them publicly through donations have been tried around the state, but the biggest chance to aid the park system came in 2009 through Proposition 21. It asked Californians to pay $18 more to their annual vehicle license fee, in exchange motorists would have received free day-use at all 278 state parks while non-residents would still pay entrance fees. Prop 21 failed, however, and erased all chances to glean the $500 million annually it would have produced.
Right now, three bills are sitting on the Assembly floor that look at new ways of state park management and funding: SB 356 (Blakeslee) that would allow cities and counties the first chance to operate a state park that closes, or SB 386 (Harman), would post contact information for bidders interested in bidding on the park, or SB 42 (Huffman) that would authorize use of nonprofits to manage parks.
