Measure would have helped fund repairs
The News to You
Had Proposition 21 passed, vehicle license fees would have been
raised by $18 and all motorists would have been given free
admission to state parks. Its failure continues the precarious
budget situation for all parks, including the San Juan Bautista
State Historic Park
– which will continue its Monday closures – and Fremont Peak,
where the winter closure of campgrounds will likely be extended
beyond the traditional March opening. The second floor of the
Zanetta House remains closed as it awaits unfunded repairs and
temporary waterproofing measures are in place
at the Plaza Hotel, where water intrusion has caused some damage
to walls.
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.
Measure would have helped fund repairs
The News to You
Had Proposition 21 passed, vehicle license fees would have been raised by $18 and all motorists would have been given free admission to state parks. Its failure continues the precarious budget situation for all parks, including the San Juan Bautista State Historic Park – which will continue its Monday closures – and Fremont Peak, where the winter closure of campgrounds will likely be extended beyond the traditional March opening. The second floor of the Zanetta House remains closed as it awaits unfunded repairs and temporary waterproofing measures are in place at the Plaza Hotel, where water intrusion has caused some damage to walls.
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.
The delay in approval of a state budget means that parks do not yet know what their final funding will be for this fiscal year, which is nearly halfway through already.
“Who knows what additional cuts we’ll have to look at,” Guaracha said. “It’s very similar to last year. It’s always been about trying to maximize your dollars and try to create partnerships to extend that money.”
While he admitted to being frustrated that the vehicle license surcharge was not approved, he said he believes it was more a result of voters rejecting an additional fee during tough economic times – not rejecting the idea that parks require more funding.
Prop. 21, which would have given motorists free admission to parks in exchange for the higher registration fee, failed by 16 points in the election. In San Benito County, the proposition received support from less than 50 percent of those casting ballots.
“I don’t think this was a referendum on whether people cared about their parks or conservation. I think it was rather the malaise of the moment,” said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation, which sponsored the initiative. “There was a lot of anti-tax, anti-fee sentiment out there.”
Pinnacle wire services contributed to this report.
