{"id":8994,"date":"2009-05-28T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-28T20:14:48","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T20:14:48","slug":"hiding-our-natural-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/28\/hiding-our-natural-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiding our Natural Resources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Robert <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/8992\/just-say-no\">alluded to the closing of state parks<\/a>, but today we got the bloody details of what Arnold plans to do to our state parks:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger&#8217;s latest proposal to tackle the state&#8217;s $24.3 billion shortfall includes the elimination of all general fund contributions to California&#8217;s 279 parks within two years.<\/p>\n<p>It is a nightmare scenario that would mean the public could be barred from visiting 223 parks &#8211; that&#8217;s 80 percent of the state-owned parks, according to park officials. <\/i>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?file=\/c\/a\/2009\/05\/28\/MNLE17S12M.DTL\">SF Gate 5\/28\/09<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Besides the absolute tragedy of allowing some of our state&#8217;s natural treasures being locked up behind a gate, this plan is completely unpractical. &nbsp;How exactly are we going to stop people from using the beach? Is a lock really going to stop people from going to the state parks? The only thing we are doing is creating what is known in tort law as an &#8220;attractive nuisance.&#8221; We will create hazardous conditions in state parks that people have been going to for years, and will not stop because of a padlock or a warning sign here or there.<\/p>\n<p>Like so many other of these small-minded cuts, this one is simply not practical and a bad idea for our economy. Take <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/local\/story\/1431493.html\">Hearst Castle in San Simeon<\/a> for example. It is a huge tourist draw for the region. While it doesn&#8217;t quite get enough money in park fees to cover the expenses, the net result of the increased tax base in the region is a net benefit to the state. &nbsp;Without the Castle being open, the region and the state will net a loss of money. &nbsp;Same thing for parks all across the state. &nbsp;People come to California to visit our natural resources, and they expect to be able to go to our amazing state parks. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We are simply cutting off our nose to spite our face at this point. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calparks.org\/\">California State Parks Foundation<\/a> fought cuts in the past, and they have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calparks.org\/takeaction\/\">suggested action items<\/a> for you now.<\/p>\n<p>The slideshow is a small snippet of some of the parks that would be closed under this proposal. You can view the slideshow larger below the flip.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width:480px; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/photobucket.com\/slideshows\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pic.photobucket.com\/slideshows\/btn.gif\" style=\"float:left;border-width: 0;\" ><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/s15.photobucket.com\/albums\/a397\/utbriancl\/?action=view&#038;current=f44374ab.pbw\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pic.photobucket.com\/slideshows\/btn_viewallimages.gif\" style=\"float:left;border-width: 0;\" ><\/a><\/embed><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><embed  type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" src=\"http:\/\/w15.photobucket.com\/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http:\/\/w15.photobucket.com\/albums\/a397\/utbriancl\/f44374ab.pbw\" height=\"216\" width=\"288\" align=right><\/embed>Robert <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/8992\/just-say-no\">alluded to the closing of state parks<\/a>, but today we got the bloody details of what Arnold plans to do to our state parks:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger&#8217;s latest proposal to tackle the state&#8217;s $24.3 billion shortfall includes the elimination of all general fund contributions to California&#8217;s 279 parks within two years.<\/p>\n<p>It is a nightmare scenario that would mean the public could be barred from visiting 223 parks &#8211; that&#8217;s 80 percent of the state-owned parks, according to park officials. <\/i>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?file=\/c\/a\/2009\/05\/28\/MNLE17S12M.DTL\">SF Gate 5\/28\/09<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Besides the absolute tragedy of allowing some of our state&#8217;s natural treasures being locked up behind a gate, this plan is completely unpractical. &nbsp;How exactly are we going to stop people from using the beach? Is a lock really going to stop people from going to the state parks? The only thing we are doing is creating what is known in tort law as an &#8220;attractive nuisance.&#8221; We will create hazardous conditions in state parks that people have been going to for years, and will not stop because of a padlock or a warning sign here or there.<\/p>\n<p>Like so many other of these small-minded cuts, this one is simply not practical and a bad idea for our economy. Take <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/local\/story\/1431493.html\">Hearst Castle in San Simeon<\/a> for example. It is a huge tourist draw for the region. While it doesn&#8217;t quite get enough money in park fees to cover the expenses, the net result of the increased tax base in the region is a net benefit to the state. &nbsp;Without the Castle being open, the region and the state will net a loss of money. &nbsp;Same thing for parks all across the state. &nbsp;People come to California to visit our natural resources, and they expect to be able to go to our amazing state parks. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We are simply cutting off our nose to spite our face at this point. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calparks.org\/\">California State Parks Foundation<\/a> fought cuts in the past, and they have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calparks.org\/takeaction\/\">suggested action items<\/a> for you now.<\/p>\n<p>The slideshow is a small snippet of some of the parks that would be closed under this proposal. You can view the slideshow larger below the flip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[1654,2850],"class_list":["post-8994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-32","tag-1654","tag-2850"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2l4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}