Peak closed Monday-Wednesday; historic park closed on
Mondays
Having avoided the worst-case scenario of complete closure, the
San Juan Bautista State Historic Park and Fremont Peak will instead
have reduced days of operation at least through the end of
June.
Starting this week, Fremont Peak is closed Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday and its 22-site campground was closed a month earlier
than normal.
Peak closed Monday-Wednesday; historic park closed on Mondays
Having avoided the worst-case scenario of complete closure, the San Juan Bautista State Historic Park and Fremont Peak will instead have reduced days of operation at least through the end of June.
Starting this week, Fremont Peak is closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and its 22-site campground was closed a month earlier than normal.
The historic park, which includes the Plaza Hotel, Castro-Breen Adobe and other historic buildings in San Juan, will continue the Monday closure implemented in August to help manage a reduce state parks budget.
“The worst-case scenario was complete closure so it’s nice to know we’re not going to close,” said Eddie Guaracha, Gavilan Sector superintendent for the state parks. “The flip side is we still have to work with a lower budget so there’s no way we can work at the same level” as before.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in September ordered a more than $14 million reduction in the state parks budget instead of closing as many as 100 parks, which he had proposed earlier in the year to help balance the state’s budget. More than half of the 279 state parks will be affected by reduced hours and maintenance this fiscal year – which runs through June 30 – and this year’s state budget predicts another $22 million parks budget cut will be necessary for the next year, which starts July 1.
“The last thing we were told is that the state finance department will work with state parks in January, which is when we’ll have a greater sense of how things will be next year,” Guaracha said. “At this point we’re optimistic but we’re going to have to wait until the governor determines what allocations state parks will have for next year.”
Guaracha said the Monday closure of the historic park was implemented nearly three months ago because “we anticipated there would be some type of budget cuts.”
Wanting to preserve the school programs the park offers to school children from around the state, it was decided to close the park on what is typically the slowest day of the work week.
No additional, seasonal staff is being hired locally to handle maintenance issues, so permanent staff, including Guaracha, eight maintenance employees, and five rangers, have taken on some additional duties.
“It will take a little longer to do the normal duties that the public expects, whether it’s a clean bathroom or when the campground opens again,” Guaracha said, noting that trash pickup, the cleaning of fire rings and the repair of split-rail fences and water systems could be delayed.
Doug Brown, president of the Fremont Peak Observatory Association, which has a contract with the state to operate the observatory, said the closures at the peak should have little impact this winter, as the last public program for the winter was held last week.
“We’re closed for the winter and we’ll resume our operation in April or May,” Brown said. “It’s not ideal that it’s not open all the time but it’s a lot better than everybody feared a few months back.”
Because of California’s budget woes, the observatory association has had month-to-month contract extensions with the state since last spring.
“They didn’t want to enter into a long-term, binding contractual agreement [during state budget negotations] but we’re interested in agreeing to a long-term relationship because a lot of our facility there is 25 years old and we’d like to make some investments in it.”
The association, which built the observatory and donated it to the state, has a concession contract that allows its members to operate the star-gazing venue and earn revenue.
“Basically, it’s a legal formality that allows us to control and operate the observatory on behalf of the state,” Brown said. “Our purpose is to do public outreach. It would be hard to hire people to do that. They’re getting good value for their money and it works out well for us also.”
Brown said he expects talks on a new contract to begin soon.
