While the long-term effects of the election-day failure of
Proposition 21 will take time to fully measure, the immediate
impact will be a continued delay in needed maintenance at the San
Juan Bautista State Historic Park.
While the long-term effects of the election-day failure of Proposition 21 will take time to fully measure, the immediate impact will be a continued delay in needed maintenance at the San Juan Bautista State Historic Park.
The rejection of Prop. 21, which would have raised vehicle license fees by $18 to help fund state parks, means that earthquake retrofitting of the Zanetta House and weatherproofing of the Plaza Hotel will be on hold indefinitely, according to Eddie Guaracha, Gavilan Sector superintendent for state parks.
“It would have addressed a lot of deferred maintenance projects,” he said, noting how the second floor of the Zanetta House has been closed for the past four years as park officials seek funding for an engineering report to gauge the extent of work needed to reopen the tourist attraction, where part of the Alfred Hitchcock movie “Vertigo” was filmed.
Elsewhere on the Mission plaza, the hotel has tarps on some window sills to prevent the seepage of water into the building. Water stains are visible on the walls where rain has dripped into the building through an antiquated roof.
“We’ve done makeshift band-aids to arrest decay as much as we can,” Guaracha said. “It’s a little frustrating.”
The repair of the buildings is necessary not just to maintain their structural integrity, he added, but to ensure that they can be open to the public for tours and special fundraising events.
More than half of the 278 California state parks reduced service or operating days to save money.
“This is not an easy time,” said Ruth Coleman, director of California State Parks. “I do expect that we will be seeing no added service levels and in some cases less service levels than we had … (and) we’ll look at closures as a last resort.
Prop. 21 would have generated nearly $500 million per year for the park systems. Officials estimate that more than $1.3 billion of repairs are needed statewide.
Locally, Guaracha said he may extend the winter closure of the Fremont Peak campgrounds, which are annually closed from Dec. 1 through March. Park staff is already at a minimum level, he said, with the typical four seasonal workers reduced to one this year.
See the full story in the Pinnacle on Friday.
