The Parks and the People: Keeping California’s State Parks Alive in Hard Times

the

Parks and the

People Keeping California’s State Parks Alive in Hard Times

by Joan Hamilton Joseph Engbeck is the author of a celebratory history of California’s state parks. His book starts with 1864 and ends in the 1970s, when the system had grown to 250 parks and was in its heyday. He has intriguing tales to tell about most any era— but falls silent when asked about the one we’re living through now.

“I wouldn’t like to write that chapter,” he says.

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(large photo) Mono Lake.

(Inset, left to right) Olompali State Historic Park; Robert Hanna opposing closure of Benicia Capitol SHP; wheelchair hiker on Mount Diablo; kayakers at Tomales Bay State Park.

by private citizens. In the 1920s the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League worked with landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to survey the state and poll its people. They put together a plan that included the protection of such iconic landmarks as Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais, and Point Lobos, as well as redwood groves and popular beaches. Though the state still had vast open spaces and only 5 million people, a $6 million state park bond issue passed by almost 3 to 1 in 1928.

Private funding also has played an important role. Since 1918, more than $135 million in contributions to Save the Redwoods has

Julie Kitzenberger

That’s understandable. California’s world-class collection of parks—protecting spectacular forests, deserts, beaches, mountains, and historical monuments—has suffered from budgetary neglect for decades. In the last six years alone, taxpayers’ contribution to the parks’ operating budget shrank by 37 percent. Poorly maintained facilities, reduced schedules, and short staffing are not unusual. Parks where professional naturalists and educators once guided visitors are now often staffed in “drive-by” fashion, with a single pistol-packing law-enforcement ranger assigned to watch over several parks. “I have nothing but compliments for how they’ve managed to stretch and stretch, but you can only go so far,” says Bob Doyle, general manager of East Bay Regional Park District. “They are basically down to a less than bare-bones police force.”

When the governor and legislature delivered the latest insult last year, a cut of $22 million over two years, the state Department of Parks and Recreation decided to close 70 of its 279 state parks—25 percent of the system—in the hope of minimizing harm to the other 75 percent.

Since the closures were announced in May 2011, park lovers have rallied, ardently, to keep parks open. At the state’s invitation, nonprofits and government entities have submitted temporary rescue plans. In articles that follow, we chronicle some of their remarkable accomplishments at a sampling of parks around the state.

This article looks at the parks crisis more broadly, from the viewpoint of the state parks department and its allies. In some ways, it’s a confounding Alice-in-Wonderland tale in which “open” can mean closed, “closed” can mean open, attempts to “cut spending” could cost the state dearly, and “saving” a park can mean keeping its creaky gates unlocked for just one more year.

But the story is also about the creative part of the chaos: a potentially game-changing 21st-century partnership between the state parks and the people.

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n an era of shrinking support for public services, from college education to in-home services for the elderly, parks are expected to share in California’s budgetary pain. If many park advocates have taken the matter personally, it’s because state parks are more than just a department in Sacramento. They are part of a system created

been used to purchase land that ended up in 39 state parks. That’s 154,000 acres, or 10 percent of the system. Those funds were donated with the understanding that the lands would be protected and accessible as parks in perpetuity.

So you can imagine how Save the Redwoods League executive director Ruskin Hartley felt when 16 of those 39 parks showed up on the closure list in May. He didn’t ask for his money back, but he did begin asking questions. “Cutting parks was not a budget necessity,” he said at a legislative hearing in Sacramento, “It was a choice the administration made.”

While acknowledging the seriousness of the state’s budget problems, Hartley noted that the $22 million cut was “barely enough to keep the state running for three hours, about the length of this hearing.” And if you divided those millions among the parks’

Scenes from state parks slated for closure: (above) View from the Rocky Ridge trail at Garrapata SP, south of Carmel. (from left to right) Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park, south of Calistoga; campsite at Salton Sea State Recreation Area in Imperial County; wetland at China Camp SP near San Rafael; creek in Bothe-Napa SP, south of Calistoga; Castle Crags SP, south of Mount Shasta. page 25 photo credits Main photo: © George Ward, georgeward.com Insets (left to right): Galen Leeds, galenleeds.net; Joan Hamilton; Courtesy CSPF; Diane Poslosky

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Brenton Cooper

Chuck Graham

approximately 65 million visitors a year, you’d only need about 35 state spends $2 for every dollar it brings in at Bothe–Napa,” he says. cents a visitor to fill the gap. Wasn’t there some way the state could “So you can see the magnitude of our challenge.” have found that money?

But Woodbury believes that “with careful cost control,” a balOthers raised questions about how the closure list had been anced budget can be achieved at Bothe–Napa—and at most other assembled. In 2005 the parks department had declared Mono Lake parks with popular campgrounds. To boost revenue at the campTufa Reserve and Castle Crags to be among the 29 units in the ground, he plans to use a few old park buildings as vacation rentals system with “the most outstanding natural resources values,” yet and add 10 donated yurts. To shrink costs, he intends to hire a they were on the list. Jack London is a world-renowned historic retired Bothe–Napa ranger at a lower pay rate than that of the park, yet it was there, too, along with 45 percent of the state’s 50 peace officer/rangers who run most state parks. He would put historic parks. Department staff considered nine criteria, including maintenance and operations management under one person the parks’ natural and historic values. “But most of all, it was about instead of two and increase the number of volunteer campground net revenue,” state parks director Ruth Coleman says. hosts. The county sheriff would be allowed to set up a substation in Early on, some park advocates doubted that the closures, which another park building in exchange for keeping an eye on the park. had been threatened twice before, would really happen.

Theoretically, these measures would When the parks cut remained in the budget adopted in June cut expenses and boost revenues by Park lovers have 2011, however, nonprofits and local governments from the one third each, making the park rallied, ardently, North Coast to the Salton Sea started scrambling for self-supporting. to keep parks open. solutions to keep their local parks open. Some worked on Here and elsewhere in the state, raising funds to pay state staff salaries; others focused on cutting expenses often means helping with a subset of park operations such as visitor centers and reducing the number, and sometimes the pay scale, of jobs. But campgrounds; others decided to try to run an entire park. the alternative—closure—would mean no jobs at all at a given park.

The latter is nothing new. Two state parks are already being run As for the displaced workers, the department has said that those by nonprofits (El Presidio de Santa Barbara and Marconi Conferwilling to transfer could likely expect to find a job elsewhere in the ence Center) and 32 by cities, counties, and special districts, inpark system, due to many unfilled vacancies. cluding three in the Bay Area run by the East Bay Regional Park An hour’s drive from Napa to the west, the Sonoma County District. But the department said it would consider a host of new Regional Parks staff has made a bid to run Annadel State Park, a one- to five-year contracts, and the Legislature passed a new law, mountain biking, hiking, and equestrian mecca. In partnership A.B. 42, to streamline the process by permitting the transfer of up with a grassroots nonprofit called LandPaths, the county hopes to 20 state parks to nonprofits without legislative approval. to go beyond simply keeping Annadel open. “We’d give people John Woodbury, general manager of Napa County’s parks exemplary experiences in the park while being part of its stewarddepartment, was among the first to complete a proposal. In the ship,” LandPaths executive director Craig Anderson says. “We’d heart of wine country, beloved Bothe–Napa Valley State Park was start by bringing out kids from every single school in Santa Rosa on the closure list, and he dreaded what that would mean for the within walking distance. We’d see if senior communities could have community: “Everyone, from the sheriff to local park users, feared picnics at the trailhead. We’d see if we could entice the 30-somevandalism, homeless people moving in, and pot-growing operathings with something kind of edgy and fresh.” Volunteers would tions.” Besides, if a park closed, it would have to meet the latest help protect and maintain Annadel, too, making it more central to building codes and water system standards before it could reopen. community life. Anderson’s vision, though born of the need for a That would mean “starting from scratch,” requiring a huge investshort-term fix, reflects longer-term thinking about how to ensure a ment. “So we realized we needed to make a good-faith effort to keep more robust future for public parks. it open,” Woodbury says.

If taking over parks was a stretch for counties like This was not an easy proposition. WoodNapa and Sonoma, it would be a giant leap for most bury’s park district is small. His office has local nonprofits. While navigating the state bureaua minimal budget and one and a half paid cracy, they instantly needed to learn about everything staff. There was no way the county could from waterworks to liability law. Meanwhile, the subsidize the state park. “Right now the nonprofit California State Parks (continued on page 38)

John Karachewski, geoscapesphotography.com

Eliya Selhub, closingcaliforniaparks.com

John Karachewski, geoscapesphotography.com

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Bay Area

Samuel P. Taylor State Park

A Lifeline from the Feds

Ed Callaert, edcallaert.com

in May, Taylor won removal in September, thanks to some creative thinking by local state park staff and a neighbor, the National Park Service. “I heard Taylor was saved,” one visitor exults. “We got a temporary reprieve,” Blackburn says.

Like most parks on the list, Taylor was probably targeted for financial reasons. About 130,000 people come each year and pay over $500,000 in day-use and camping fees, but that’s only about half the current cost of running the park. Taylor’s picnic areas and 61 campsites are popular. But they can’t accommodate many people, and numerous access points enable many visitors to avoid the $8 day-use fee.

Even before the closure crisis, Taylor was 50 percent below full staffing levels—compensating partly by closing down for two or three days a week in the winter. The public was mostly unaware of this whittling away of staff, but the ax of closure “got a lot of attention,” Blackburn says—including from the managers of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), which surrounds Taylor on three sides. Frank Dean, general superintendent of GGNRA, was worried that closure “could create use pressures and unacceptable threats.” So the two parties came up with a solution to keep the park open.

Starting in January 2012, Muir Woods—which draws six times as many visitors as Taylor—boosted its $5 entrance fee to $7. The extra money will provide approximately $475,000 dollars to keep Taylor open at least five days a week. It will also beef up the budget of Mount Tamalpais State Park (not on the closure list, but in the same watershed as Muir Woods) and enable restoration of Redwood Creek, which flows from Mount Tamalpais through Muir Woods to the Pacific Ocean at Muir Beach in the GGNRA. State and federal lands will both benefit.

The state and the feds have been informally helping each other

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n a frosty January morning, Rose Blackburn is raising the flag at the entrance to Samuel P. Taylor State Park. With a radio on one hip and a pistol on the other, the small, trim woman cheerfully waves in the first car of the day.

In Marin County just north of San Francisco, Taylor is best known for first-class camping in a fern-filled redwood forest. Its trees aren’t as lofty as those on the North Coast, but—with at least one redwood over 90 meters—they’re taller than those at the more celebrated Muir Woods National Monument a few miles to the south. Taylor shelters rare wildlife, too, with spotted owls and freshwater shrimp and (even rarer on the Central California coast) a small but ecologically significant run of steelhead trout and coho salmon.

Today, supervising ranger Blackburn has agreed to take a reporter on a sort of victory lap around the park. On the closure list

Lagunitas Creek (above left)—a central feature of Samuel P. Taylor State Park—hosts an ecologically significant run of coho salmon. (below) A couple of girls enjoying the water on a warm summer day.

© Kathleen Goodwin, kathleengoodwin.net

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Eliya Selhub, closingcaliforniaparks.com

for years in Marin County, where their lands are thoroughly intertwined. For example, the overflow parking lot at Muir Woods is on state land. Another national park unit, Point Reyes National Seashore, surrounds Tomales Bay State Park, which was thrown a different type of federal lifeline in September. While Taylor will be run by the state, the National Seashore will collect fees and take over operations at Tomales Bay. When the closure of Taylor was first announced, Petaluma-based Lagunitas Brewing Company offered its own proposal to save the park. The firm’s founder, Tony McGee, believed that he could run Taylor more efficiently than the state. What it would take, he said, was some help from the sheriff and a business-savvy nonprofit staffed by enthusiastic volunteers and less highly trained, lowercost staff.

Some cheered that entrepreneurial option. But others breathed a sigh of relief when the National Park Service came to the rescue.

In August 2011, Marin Community Foundation president Tom Peters and state Assembly member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) had formed the Marin Open Parks Coalition to address closures at Taylor and three other Marin state parks—China Camp, Tomales Bay, and Olompali. Ideally, Peters said, the coalition was looking for solutions “that allowed professional park authorities to maintain these complex resources,” so the federal support option was preferable.

But that’s not the end of the story. As Blackburn said, this is a temporary reprieve. The money from Muir Woods, plus camping

and day-use fees, should keep the park operating through June 2013. But then the contract needs to be renewed.

Blackburn hopes to have the park on a firmer footing by the time that date rolls around. “The deal is designed to keep us where we’re at, which is not optimal,” Blackburn says. “But maybe if we come up with some great incomeproducing ideas and efficiencies, it will be different.”

For starters, Blackburn hopes to bolster Taylor’s volunteer committee, part of the nonprofit Marin State Parks Association (which is also working to keep Olompali and China Camp from closing). She’s also reassessing her use of volunteer campground hosts. In exchange for a free RV space, they work 20 hours a week, helping at the entrance, selling firewood, answering visitors’ questions, and handling late-night emergencies.

In peak season, she now has two campground hosts. She may expand that to three or four, with one host concentrating on maintenance. One surefire revenue enhancement is a new lodging option: five new primitive cabins that she hopes will be ready for visitors this spring, at $100 a night or so (compared with $35 for a campsite).

As Blackburn shows the reporter around, she squeezes in other tasks: making change at the entrance, telling people how to get to various trailheads, asking a couple to leash a dog, and sending a maintenance person out to clear a tree that’s fallen over a trail. After a couple of hours, though, she glimpses her watch. The park she’s been describing, with higher revenues and lower costs, is still theoretical. In the here and now, it’s midweek—time to go shut down the campground.

Alan Justice

(left) Trails at Samuel P. Taylor ascend from the redwood forest along the creek into the open grassland hills of West Marin. (below) A rhododendron blooms in the forest at Del Norte Coast Redwoods.

Fe d e ral Hel p for De l N or t e as w el l Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park is part of a complex of parks in the northwestern corner of California that shelter and showcase the world’s tallest trees.

Redwood National Park has the most acreage. But the three state parks—Del Norte Redwoods, Prairie Creek Redwoods, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods—have all the campgrounds and some of the most magnificent redwoods. All four parks in Redwood National and State Parks share the same visitor center and host 45 percent of the state’s remaining old-growth

redwoods.

When Del Norte showed up on the closure list in May, national park officials had some of the same concerns voiced at Samuel P. Taylor and Tomales Bay state parks. A shuttered park would be attractive for illegal drug cultivation, endangering resources and visitors. Trails would fall into disuse. Campground capacity would shrink.

Thefts of sections of downed redwoods, already a problem on the North Coast, would likely increase.

So starting in September 2011, the state

and the feds entered into a one-year agreement in which the National Park Service has taken over most responsibilities for operating Del Norte. While not providing any additional funding or taking responsibility for infrastructure repairs, the agency is keeping the park’s campground and most of its 31,000 acres open. “This will mean that some national park trails and facilities will get less attention,” said an agency press release in October, “but closure would likely diminish the quality of visitors’ experiences in the entire complex.”

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Eastern California

Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve

Where There’s a Will . . .

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tark, wide-open Mono Lake—with its iconic tufa towers formed by the combination of carbonates in the salty lake and calcium from freshwater springs—is one of the natural wonders of California. Its abundant brine shrimp and alkali flies provide “an all-you-can-eat buffet for birds,” says park interpreter Dave Marquart. A majority of the California gulls in the state get their start here. Some 1.5 million eared grebes migrate through in the fall. Tens of thousands of phalaropes—Wilson’s and rednecked—summer here each year.

All told, the lake hosts some 80 migratory bird species, many of which travel huge distances. The Wilson’s phalaropes, for example, nest in the northern United States or Canada. After they’ve doubled their weight at Mono Lake, they fly nonstop to the coasts of Ecuador and Colombia.

These and other ecological riches earned Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve a place on the state’s 2005 list of 29 parks with “the most outstanding natural resource values.” It doesn’t seem like the sort of place that would end up on a state park closure list—especially since it costs the state only about $60,000 annually.

But when the list was published in May 2011, there it was.

The U.S. Forest Service manages 180 square miles upland from the lake— Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area—and a spiffy high-profile visitor center just off the highway.

The state manages 70 square miles that include the lake itself, a bathtub ring of land around it, and two of the three access points. The feds and the state divide up tasks, with the state providing a volunteer program and signage, trail maintenance, and interpretation for adults and schoolchildren at all the lakeside accesses. Some 250,000 people visit the lake through those three access points every year. © George Ward, georgeward.com When the closure list was announced, State Park and Forest Service staff almost immediately put their heads together with others, including representatives of the Mono Lake Committee advocacy group and the Bodie Foundation, which raises funds for three parks in the area, including the Tufa Reserve. They all suspected that the problem was the state park’s revenues, which stood out like a sore thumb—at zero. Parking fees were collected at the Forest Service’s South Tufa entrance, but no fees were collected at the two state-owned entrances. (above left) Afternoon sun glows on tufa formations along the south shore of Mono Lake. (below) Kayakers on Mono Lake, with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

David Wimpfheimer, calnaturalist.com

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John W. Wall, jwallphoto.blogspot.com

(above) Dawn light on tufa towers at Mono Lake. (left) The abundant alkali flies at Mono Lake make it an essential stop on the migration route for many birds, such as this juvenile Wilson’s phalarope.

this park!” Executive director Geoff McQuilkin told him what the committee was doing and where to send a letter. “But then we got to talking,” McQuilkin says. “It turned out he was the great-greatgrandson of John Muir.”

The Muir relative was 31-year-old Robert Hanna. A former sales manager at a financial firm, he had just started an online business when the closure was announced. But he decided to drop everything and fight for the park.

Hanna remembered a hike he’d taken with a revered great-uncle at age 11. When they got to a particularly splendid place, the older man said, “Someday you will understand how important these places are to our family. And when these places cry out for help, you must answer their call.”

“At 11, I thought he was nuts,” Hanna says. “But when the closure list came out, I understood. These lands were crying out to me for the first time.” Soon he was helping McQuilkin and others with the

An Ope n Park’ s L amen t The largest state park, Anza-Borrego Desert in Southern California, had the good fortune to not wind up on the closure list.

Yet in the past few years, its budget has been steadily shrinking, forcing a reduction in staff from 44 to 22 and the closure of a third of its campground spaces. The remaining staff may soon need to start patrolling nearby Salton Sea and Picacho

Julie Kitzenberger

So parking fees were an obvious solution. The group proposed setting up a self-pay station at the popular Old Marina site, which was deemed the easier of the two entrances for collecting a $3-per-car parking fee. If the park staff were to collect these fees, they would go to the State Parks and Recreation Fund to be shared among all the parks. But in this case the Bodie Foundation would collect the money and put it in an account to be used for Mono Lake only.

The group’s next task was to convince officials in Sacramento that the scheme would work. An intense young man whose family owned a cabin in nearby Lundy Canyon turned out to be an important ally. Shortly after the closures were announced, he called the Mono Lake Committee and declared, “We can’t close Mono campaign: first crafting the proposal, then paddling around the lake with two members of the state Legislature, Assembly member Kristin Olsen (R-Modesto) and Senator Ted Gaines (R-Roseville). “I just knew I had to get them out there,” he says.

“And they walked away saying, ‘Wow, we’re here to fight for you.’”

Once a proposal had been submitted, Hanna says, he called the state park headquarters in Sacramento every day at 9:30 a.m. “I just told them I’m not going away until it’s done.” Two months later, on December 1, Mono Lake was officially removed from the list.

“We showed that we will stand and fight for our parks,” Hanna said in a blog entry on his new Range of Light outdoor-clothing business website. “We also showed what can be accomplished by working together for something you love.”

Lately, Hanna has been advising and cheering on advocates at other parks on the closure list, including Benicia Capitol State Historic Park and Benicia State Recreation Area in the Bay Area and Castle Crags State Park near Mount Shasta. “I tell people to stay confident,” he says. “Don’t fall into the negativity of ‘I hate government’ and ‘how could they do this to us?’ We don’t have time for that right now; we need everybody clicking on all cylinders.”

Work is ongoing at Mono Lake, where park advocates are thinking about special events and other programs that could supplement the $30,000 or so the parking fee is expected to bring in. “Mono is a one-of-a-kind park that doesn’t have an ideal place to collect revenues,” says acting Sierra District Superintendent Matt Green. “Any unit in that category is going to be subject to scrutiny in difficult times.”

parks, which are on the closure list, on top of their own 600,000 acres.

“It’s really depressing for everybody,” says Anza-Borrego Superintendent Kathy Dice. “There’s no money to replace equipment or fix things. We’re down to counting paper clips.”

The May 2011 closure announcement was aimed at reducing pain for the remain-

ing parks in the system. But of the $22 million to be cut over two years, about half will come from headquarters cuts and service reductions at those open parks, says state parks’ Deputy Director of Communications Roy Stearns.

“Our staff is scared,” Dice says. “We all know in our hearts there is nowhere left to cut.”

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Anderson Marsh

Bothe-Napa Annadel

Austin Creek

Hendy Woods

Russian Gulch

Jug Handle

ColusaSacramento River

Portola Redwoods

Diggins

Plumas-Eureka

Turlock Lake

Railtown 1897

South Yuba River

Bidwell Mansion

Woodson Bridge

William B. Ide Adobe

Shasta SHP

Weaverville Joss House

Castle Crags

Bale Grist Mill Leland Stanford Mansion Sugarloaf Ridge Jack London Governor's Petaluma Adobe Tomales Bay Mansion Olompali Samuel P. Taylor Benicia China Camp Brannan Island Benicia Capitol Candlestick Point Gray Whale Cove

Manchester

Greenwood

Point Cabrillo Light Station

WestportUnion Landing

Standish-Hickey

Benbow Lake

Grizzly Creek Redwoods

Fort Humboldt

Del Norte Coast Redwoods

Mono Lake Tufa

Samuel P. Taylor State Park (p. 28)

Hendy Woods State Park (p. 36)

march 2012

State of the State Parks

Open, Closed, or In Between?

Julie Kitzenber

Eliya Selhub, closingcaliforniaparks.com

Ed Callaert, edcallaert.com

Urban area

Major roadways

50 miles

N

Cartography by Louis Jaffé and John Kelly, GreenInfo Network. Copyright Bay Nature and GreenInfo Network.

* Parks marked with a red circle remain on the closure list; many have civic organizations or public agencies working on proposals to assume operations. * Parks marked with an orange star have proposed operating agreements with nonprofit organizations under review by the State Department of Parks & Recreation. * Parks marked with a blue star have an approved operating agreement with a nonprofit organization or public agency, or have raised dedicated funds to continue operations.

Classifications subject to change. Source: State Department of Parks & Recreation (3/6/12)

Removed from closure list

Closure list/action pending

Featured park

On closure list

Open

San Pasqual

Palomar Mountain

Saddleback Butte Antelope Valley Indian Museum

Pío Pico

Los Encinos

Santa Susana Pass

Fort Tejon

Tule Elk

California State Mining& Mineral Museum

McGrath

McConnell

Salton Sea

McGrath State Beach (p. 34)

Picacho

Providence Mountains

Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve (p. 30)

rger

Morro Strand

Limekiln

Garrapata

George J. Castle Rock Santa Cruz Mission Henry W. Coe Twin Lakes Zmudowski Moss Landing

Rick Lewis

Southern California

McGrath State Beach

McGrath’s Army Takes Back the Beach

O

Cindy Crawford

evening primrose and sand verbena. And I’ve seen things there—a bobcat on the beach, coyotes, and more birds than I could count.”

Crawford and a couple of dozen other McGrath fans decided to “try to raise as much money as we could, even if it wasn’t enough.”

Superintendent Hjelstrom is a biologist and former Peace Corps volunteer who is new to his supervisory post. With six parks to manage, he dreaded becoming known as “the superintendent who let a park go in the first summer.” And he admits to being intimidated by Crawford at first. “You get a lot of calls from people who are very critical,” he says. “But the thing that really intrigued me about Cindy was that she was never negative.

She was almost like a cheerleader. Her attitude was so infectious that I just thought, well, shoot—why not?”

In the end, Hjelstrom and Crawford worked together to keep the park open.

Hjelstrom and his boss, district superintendent Rich Rozzelle, filed for a Rick Lewis

f the more than 20 Southern California state beach parks, McGrath State Beach was the unlucky one that wound up on the closure list. It wasn’t for lack of revenues.

McGrath is a popular park in Ventura County, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles, with 174 campsites booked solid from Memorial Day through Labor Day and about 160,000 visitors a year. McGrath’s problem was that its sewage system needed replacement, a job that would cost half a million dollars that the state parks department didn’t have.

People who know McGrath tend to feel passionate about it.

While many state beaches are little more than a strip of sand between asphalt and ocean, McGrath’s 295 acres are one of the best places to see birds in all of California. You drive to a wooded campground with “lawn” areas covered with pickleweed and saltgrass. From there, you can meander through sand dunes to the 2.5-mile-long beach, visiting marshes, an estuary, and a freshwater lake along the way. On the park’s northern border the Santa Clara River pours into the ocean, flooding access to (and closing) the park each year for several months.

Ventura Sector Superintendent Eric Hjelstrom considers McGrath a jewel of the Southern California beach parks. “Out on the dunes, you feel like you’re in Baja,” he says.

As soon as the closures were announced in May 2011, the “McGrath Army” began to assemble. Among them was Cindy Crawford, a cheerful educational technology specialist from Long Beach who likes to camp, hike, and enjoy nature at McGrath with her kids and grandkids. “It’s a natural sand dune beach,” Crawford says. “Spring is absolutely beautiful. The dunes are covered in beach

(top) View across the dunes at McGrath State Beach to the mouth of the Santa Clara River estuary and the city of Ventura. (left) McGrath SB is a great place for kids and (above) for birds, like this sora.

Cindy Crawford

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work was scheduled for this winter, and the park was taken off the closure list. It is expected to reopen this summer (2012)—exactly as the McGrath Army had hoped.

Hjelstrom says the whole affair taught him not to give up on people’s love of parks—and their power to protect them. “A lot of people have lost trust in government, but that doesn’t mean they are ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

After the sewage work is complete, McGrath’s staff and supporters dream of raising even more money to improve the park, moving parts of the campground out of the flood zone and restoring marsh habitat. But that will come later. At year’s end they were still letting their victory sink in. “There are times when I’m walking a foot off the ground, thinking, ‘Did we really pull it off?’”

Hjelstrom says.

Crawford is celebrating too, but she hasn’t taken Hjelstrom off her speed-dial list yet. “SaveD McGrath!!” says the Facebook page where it all began. “But stay tuned for more!”

Rick Lewis

$250,000 federal grant from the state’s Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which had to be matched by local money. They also set up a McGrath contingency fund for the small donations that were already starting to arrive in amounts ranging from $1 to $100.

Meanwhile, Crawford noticed that Coca-Cola was offering $100,000 to the U.S. park that received the most votes in an online popularity contest. By taking multiple digital steps, people could vote as many times as they wanted. Wearing “Save McGrath” T-shirts, the McGrath Army staged rallies in the park, where they handed out fliers and showed people how to vote on their cell phones. People voted from their tents, their cars, and their homes. Crawford freely admits to having voted 13,000 times herself. (“I figured out how to do it really fast.”)

Crawford and others began contacting all the local elected representatives to ask them to help get votes, too. Local businesses began encouraging their employees to vote. The McGrath campground hosts voted so frequently they had to upgrade their cell phone plan.

As the vote totals rose, Crawford says, the McGrath Army called up “every news station on the face of the planet.” Soon the park had ascended to Coca-Cola’s top ten. With two weeks of voting left, hopes were high that it would make the top three and get a cash award.

In the end, though, McGrath’s 400,224 votes fell short of the 3 million amassed by the winner, Oak Park in Minot, North Dakota.

McGrath came in sixth, and the park closed for the season—and seemingly forever.

But in late November 2011, the LWCF grant came through.

Thanks to the upwelling of contest-generated public support, matching funds were swiftly forthcoming. Two grants of $50,000 each came from the city of Oxnard and Ventura County. The state park district eked $100,000 out of its maintenance fund. And a park-loving businessman who owns a reinsurance firm in Los Angeles kicked in the final $50,000.

Suddenly McGrath had more than it needed for repairs, the

Ed Callaert, edcallaert.com

These wetlands near the mouth of the Santa Clara River help make McGrath SB one of the best places in California to see birds.

The Santa Clara River frequently overtops its banks in winter, flooding the campground and causing seasonal closure of the park.

Th e Ele p han t i n th e Par k s As California state park budgets have tightened, the job of maintaining the parks’ infrastructure has been put off until a brighter day. In the system as a whole, there’s a $1.3 billion backlog of deferred maintenance that is expected to grow to $1.7 billion by 2015. If it’s not an ancient sewage system threatening to close the gates, as at McGrath State Beach, it’s crumbling roads, roofs, bridges, or water pipes.

Another example is the adobe home of the last Mexican governor of Alta California,

which still stands at Pio Pico State Historic Park in Whittier. Built in 1853, “The adobe will fall down if we don’t maintain it,” says Carolyn Schoff, president of Friends of Pio Pico. “But that’s been put on hold because of the budget cuts.”

A broken water system forced Mitchell Caverns, the main attraction in the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, to close in the spring of 2011. A few months later, vandals broke in to the visitor center, causing $100,000 in damage—and making

it even more expensive to ever reopen the park.

Deferred maintenance could easily scare away nonprofits and concessionaires who would otherwise be interested in operating state parks campgrounds and other facilities. “The toughest nut is going to be finding money for capital improvements,” says San Francisco State University professor of recreation studies Patrick Tierney. “I would not want to join in a contract where I knew the water system was failing.”

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Northern California

Hendy Woods State Park

Rural Refuge in the Redwoods

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orn in Brooklyn and raised in Minneapolis, Kathy Bailey moved to Northern California’s Anderson Valley in 1971 “to live a peaceful life in the country.” Working as a tree planter at first (“a hippie for sure”), she fell in love with this rural community in Mendocino County. Though only a three-hour drive from San Francisco, it seemed a world apart.

Today, Bailey is married to a retired judge, the mother of two children, and a leader of this 3,200-person community’s effort to keep open its only state park, Hendy Woods. And her life has been far from peaceful since that Friday the 13th in May when she found out the park was on the closure list. “It was like a random drive-by for the community,” she says.

(above) Hendy Woods’ ancient redwoods make it “a magical place.” (left) Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) meets with local supporters of the park to discuss how to keep Hendy Woods open. (right) Kathy Bailey is spearheading the effort to save Hendy Woods from closure.

Kathy Bailey

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Hendy is a small park with big trees—1,000-year-old redwoods. At only 845 acres, it’s not a place to see how far you can hike in a day. But minutes from a sunny parking area, you can be gazing up at several 300foot-tall, shaggy-barked giants. “It’s awe-inspiring to look up at those trees,” says Bill Boger, owner of Jack’s Valley Store, the last outpost of civilization before the turnoff to Hendy Woods.

“It’s a magical place,” says Donna Pierson-Pugh, principal at Anderson Valley Elementary School, where visits to the park are a part of the first-, third-, and fifth-grade curricula.

Hendy Woods is also a mainstay of the valley’s increasingly tourism-based economy. “Our customers make the park part of their routines,” says Deborah Cahn-Bennett, an owner of Navarro Vineyards. “It would be very Ed Callaert, edcallaert.com upsetting if it closed.” The park’s 92 campsites and four cabins provide low-cost lodging for people who want to sip the wine, drink the beer, and eat the apples, persimmons, and other fresh foods that are the valley’s signature products. And it’s almost the only place in the area where visitors can take a stroll in nature on public land. “If Hendy Woods closed,” Bailey says, “I’d have to tell them to take a walk along the highway.”

The 25-year effort to win initial protection for Hendy’s ancient trees was led by a local women’s group, the Anderson Valley Unity Club, and culminated with the dedication of the park by Governor Pat Brown’s administration in 1963. Between 1979 and 1988, over 200 acres were added to the park, thanks to the efforts of Save the Redwoods League. More recently, though, Hendy Woods seemed

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Joan Hamilton

Dan Suzio, dansuzio.com

to take care of itself while providing local residents with a place to recreate and a steady stream of visitors. Then came the “drive-by,” ironically initiated by the administration of Pat Brown’s son, current Governor Jerry Brown.

Bailey and others countered the proposed closure with an economic argument. Speaking for the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and the Anderson Valley Chamber of Commerce at a November 1 legislative hearing in Sacramento, she explained that closing eight of the county’s 17 state parks, as proposed, would surely shrink the county’s contribution to state sales taxes and increase its demand for state programs that help the poor and unemployed. “Does doing great harm to most of our businesses by closing Hendy Woods State Park really help the general fund?” Bailey asked in her testimony. “It seems unlikely to us.”

In early November Anderson Valley residents staged a three-day “Occupy Hendy Woods” rally in the park. About 150 people showed up for camping, community meals, teach-ins, and a “day of the dead parks” parade. Bailey attended and got talking with others about how to keep the park open.

In December, the grassroots effort entered a new phase. At a meeting in the Anderson Valley Grange, about a hundred people said they’d be willing to contribute either money or time to keep the park open. Soon after, a core group of 17 people, including Bailey, filed for nonprofit status as Hendy Woods Community, Inc., and submitted a proposal to the state.

The group’s members planned to raise money for the park’s full-time ranger and maintenance positions, while filling three part-time positions with community volunteers. They hoped that

Some of Hendy’s 1,000 year-old redwoods are over 300 feet tall.

those volunteers, combined with additional fundraising and revenue enhancements (including collecting the $8 day-use fee at the gate more assiduously), could close the gap between the park’s $240,000 in annual revenues and its expenses. Only one problem: They couldn’t get a firm number on expenses. Based on spreadsheets from the state, Bailey first estimated a gap of between $70,000 and $150,000.

In January the state said, no, the number was actually $200,000.

By February it had zoomed up to $270,000, for what the state was calling “ideal service levels,” though Hendy Woods has not been providing ideal service levels for years.

At press time in March, with the July 1 closure date fast approaching, Bailey had a Post-It with the words “moving target” on her computer. But she was optimistic about the prospects of keeping the park open. She had received offers of help from other nonprofits. The county sheriff had promised to assist with law enforcement. The parks department was going to be holding workshops for potential partners soon.

And she was now viewing potential concessionaires, who once seemed to be a threat, as a tool to perhaps run part of the park and help fill the revenue gap, whatever it was. “Supposedly the parks department is going to accept proposals from credible nonprofit organizations,” she said. “We’ll see if that includes us.”

Th e Cost of Clos i n g Park s California had a $10 billion budget deficit in 2011–2012, and many programs were slashed, including education, health, and human services. So why shouldn’t the state Department of Parks and Recreation be asked to share the pain?

It’s a fair question. But the answer is complicated by the argument that the parks generate economic activity and hence increase sales tax revenue for the state.

“State parks generate hundreds of millions of dollars for local economies, and a healthy stream of sales tax revenue,” state Assembly member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) said at a November hearing on the impact of park closures. “So before we venture further down this road, we should make sure that the closure plan will produce meaningful savings.”

At the same hearing, Patrick Tierney, a professor of recreation studies at San Francisco State University, stated, “California state parks have a positive return on investment. You are losing money by closing state parks.” His claim is backed up by a 2010 study commissioned by the parks department, which found that state parks generate more than $6 billion in economic activity annually, including $289 million in user fees and sales taxes that go to the state. Likewise, local governments are enriched by park-related revenues of almost $145 million a year.

To minimize the economic hit to local communities and the parks department’s own coffers, the closure list included many parks whose gate revenues are low. But gate revenues are deceiving. Some parks

don’t collect fees, and even if they do, many visitors avoid them by parking outside the gates or sneaking in a “free” entrance. The upshot: Many parks on the list have generated significant revenue for local businesses.

Rural communities like the Anderson Valley, in which Hendy Woods State Park is one of the main tourist attractions, would be hurt the most. Yet such communities often have fewer people and less money to help keep their parks open.

As to those vanishing sale tax revenues, “there were some things we were not able to grasp,” admitted Deputy State Parks Director Bill Herms at the legislative hearing. “Tax revenues are not tracked for us to see. Even if they were, they are not returned to us.”

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C

alifornia state parks director Ruth Coleman is where the buck stops on the closure decision. It was not her idea to make the budget cuts, but she did pick the poison of closures. After 10 years on the job, she had her reasons. “For years you cut and spread the

Kevin O’Connor, Stewards of the Coast & Redwoods

(continued from page 27) Foundation (CSPF), which had already helped beat back an earlier attempt at park closure through its Save our State (SOS) Parks campaign, launched a new campaign called “Defend What’s Yours,” aimed at mobilizing people’s affection for their favorite parks into effective advocacy. Deploying a series of smartly constructed blogs, social media postings, PSAs, videos, petitions, postcard salvos, and digital slide shows, the foundation encouraged its 130,000 members and the public to become involved.

CSPF also assembled a team of mostly pro bono consultants to help nonprofits negotiate agreements and expand their capacities to run parks. At the same time, the organization rallied business leaders under a “Closing Parks Is Bad for Business” banner. State parks are the main tourist attraction and economic driver in some rural counties. Yet those counties have fewer people and less money to deploy in efforts to avert a closure. CSPF pointed to a 2010 study showing that state parks generate more than $6 billion in economic activity annually, including $289 million in user fees and sales tax revenue. (See “The Cost of Closing Parks,” page 37.)

As of mid-March there was good news for nine parks on the closure list. At Antelope Valley Indian Museum, Henry Coe, McGrath, and Mono Lake, enough money was forthcoming from donations, grants, and (at Mono) new revenue sources to keep the parks open under state supervision. At Samuel P. Taylor, Tomales Bay, and Del Norte, the National Park Service, which has units next to all three, devised fixes; for Colusa-Sacramento River, the city of Colusa stepped up.

By February the parks department had scheduled workshops around the state “to help find park partners.” A request for proposals from concessionaires was being considered, too—not to run whole parks, but to take over facilities like campgrounds and snack bars. And the state was still in negotiations over operating agreements in more than 20 parks, with the clock ticking loudly toward dozens of park closures on July 1.

CSPF president Elizabeth Goldstein had mixed feelings about where things stood. “People are stepping up to find short-term ways to keep these places protected. That’s absolutely essential. But even if we get 70 operators operating 70 parks for three years, we’ll still be vulnerable. Parks will be ‘saved’ only when the state steps back up to take full responsibility.”

money,” she says, “and finally we got to this year and there was nothing left to cut and spread.”

Lately Coleman feels a little misunderstood. The parks department is not, she would like you to know, abandoning the 70 parks: “We’ll maintain our stewardship role, going in and looking over the cultural and natural resources. But we cannot operate them—at least not fully.” Nor is it selling the parks to the highest bidder.

Though concessionaires may be allowed to run certain parts of a park, there are no corporate-owned state parks in our future.

People come up to her and say, “Have you thought of using volunteers?” She tells them about the annual 1 million hours of volunteer time donated and the $10 million netted by the department’s 84 nonprofit “cooperating” associations. “The public thinks it’s an easy thing to run a park,” Coleman says. “And then you start listing the things you’ve got to do. Wastewater treatment: You’re regulated by the water board, and they fine you if you don’t get it right. Drinking water supply: If you don’t get that right a lot of

More scenes from parks on the original closure list: (above) A wildflower-covered hillside at Austin Creek State Recreation Area in western Sonoma. (from left to right) Gray Whale Cove State Beach, south of Pacifica; Providence Mountains SRA in the Mojave Desert; China Hole at Henry Coe SP (taken off closure list), east of Morgan Hill; Limekiln Falls at Limekiln SP south of Big Sur; on the beach at Tomales Bay SP in West Marin (taken off closure list).

John Karachewski, geoscapesphotography.com

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Dan Suzio, dansuzio.com

people will get sick. And we can’t indemnify private parties, so there showcasing the plants and animals that live near the top of a are liability questions.” redwood forest.

By February, Coleman’s department—designed to run parks, “But we’re kidding ourselves if we think any of these places are not close them—was struggling. Only about half of the necessary going to be 100 percent self-supporting,” Coleman says. The failure savings were going to come from closures; it also had to make some of Proposition 21—a 2010 ballot initiative that would have boosted $11 million in cuts at headquarters and through service reductions auto license fees to provide dedicated state park funding—along in the field. The “takeover” proposals were stacking up. Potential with the absence of any new proposals of equivalent scope, leaves park partners complained that they couldn’t get clear information the department with nothing but hard choices. “Californians or timely decisions. inherited an extraordinary system that their grandparents were Coleman herself was having second thoughts about the costs of willing to pay for,” Coleman says sternly. “Today’s Californians closing some parks. “Maybe we’re going to have to retain our staff need to ask themselves whether they are going to be bequeathing in some places and cut elsewhere,” she admitted. that to their children.”

The very notion of “closure” was changing—beyond recognition for most ordinary park visitors. The department’s chief counsel hat’s the inconclusive place where the story now stands, “at a believes that saying a park is closed will lessen the state’s liability. hinge point in history,” says CSPF’s Goldstein. “No matter what On the other hand, most parks have many access points; completely happens now, state parks will be changed forever.” Park advocates’ closing them would be impractical, if not impossible, and would efforts have been essential and in some cases heroic. They have likely encourage crime. Moreover, 17 parks on the closure list have bought time to search for solutions. But volunteers and local govreceived federal funding that requires they remain open. Others are ernments can’t run a system as massive and complex as California’s. subject to state law requiring public coastal access.

That’s why the state has, up until now, funded a large, capable parks So Coleman has decided to redefine “closed” and keep the gates department with taxpayer dollars. open. “To us, a closed park is really a no-service park,” Coleman The parks department is straining under the weight of what’s explains. “Our operations there have ceased. But you can still about to happen. For the first time in the park system’s history, walk there, and we would almost encourage you to go and take many parks will close on July 1, 2012—at least temporarily—and photos and blog. That will keep some may be irreparably damaged. Even those that stay open law-abiding people coming.” risk the death of a thousand cuts. And unless the state’s Parks will only be In the long run, Coleman economy improves, even more cuts could be on the horizon. “saved” when the state hopes to move her department Yet from this chaos has sprung creativity. According to steps back up . . . toward a more “entrepreneurial” Goldstein, “People are beginning to be mobilized in a way mindset. Fees at the gate and they haven’t been before.” In many locations, park staff have elsewhere provided about the same amount of money for parks as joined with local residents to fight to keep parks open. They are did the state’s general fund in 2009–2010. By developing a business building momentum in the right direction: toward energized plan for each park and holding staff accountable to revenue goals as nonprofits, more flexible government, and generous private well as high ideals, she aims to boost those earnings. “We’re not contributions of time and money. The parks idea of the early 20th trying to turn them into businesses,” she says. “But we are going to century is being updated for the 21st century with broad, somebe thinking about ways to generate more revenue and reduce costs. times angry, but decidedly engaged public participation; people What can I do to market my park? Can I do are joining with their neighbors; and they’re partnerships with the Chamber of Comreconnecting with their parks. merce? Who’s not coming, and how do I get The most interesting part of the story is yet to them there?” Coleman envisions new kinds come. How will Californians respond from this of experiences that could serve the parks’ point on—as park lovers, as taxpayers, as the mission while broadening their appeal and entire generation in charge of California’s boosting their income: perhaps an “aerial magnificent natural and cultural heritage? trail” (a zip line with elevated interpretive Whether we know it or not, we’re the park’s vital stations) near Monterey or a “canopy walk” partners: Our parks don’t run themselves.

T

John Karachewski, geoscapesphotography.com

John Karachewski, geoscapesphotography.com

© Kathleen Goodwin, kathleengoodwin.net

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“The Parks and the People: Keeping California’s State Parks Alive in Hard Times” is a publication of Bay Nature, a quarterly magazine dedicated to exploring the natural world of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bay Nature is a project of the Bay Nature Institute, a Berkeley-based nonprofit publisher that also sponsors BayNature.org, an online gateway to Bay Area nature. You can purchase subscriptions to Bay Nature and additional copies of “The Parks and the People” at BayNature.org/store or by calling (888)422-9628.

“The Parks and the People” was supported by funding from the following organizations:

CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS FOUNDATION

With 130,000 members, the California State Parks Foundation is the only independent nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting, enhancing, and advocating for California’s magnificent state parks. calparks.org

Since 1918, Save the Redwoods League has protected and restored redwood forests and connected people with their peace and beauty so these wonders of the natural world can flourish. To date, the League has completed the purchase of more than 189,000 acres of redwood forest and associated land. savetheredwoods.org ®

The S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation is dedicated to advancing a productive, vibrant, and sustainable California through grantmaking that supports nonprofit organizations and initiatives that demonstrate the potential to address critical challenges to the health and prosperity of California.

Learn More About the Parks and Get Involved!

State Department of Parks and Recreation – Find information about all of California’s state parks on the department’s redesigned website: parks.ca.gov.

You can also find a Partnership Workbook for nonprofits and public agencies interested in taking on responsibility for parks slated for closure: parks.ca.gov/?page_id=26966.

California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) The nonprofit California State Parks Foundation (calparks.org) has a variety of resources and related sites to help you stay informed and engaged, as well as ways to donate to help save closing parks.

• Defend What’s Yours – The place to start for information on, and ways to get involved in, the state parks closure issue. calparks.org/defend • Save Our State Parks – Information about the state parks’ budget crisis and how to become an advocate for parks. savestateparks.org • The Magnificent 70 – Get to know the parks on the closure list. mag70.calparks.org • CalParks Voices Blog – A comprehensive resource for things related to park closures, including relevant events, art shows, and workshops. calparks.wordpress.com • Facebook – facebook.com/calparks • Twitter – twitter.com/calparks • You Tube – youtube.com/user/CAStateParksFndtn • 15th Annual Earth Day Cleanup – CSPF is hosting volunteer environmental improvement projects at 18 parks around the state on Saturday, April 14, 2012. calparks.org/earth-day Contacts for Profiled State Parks • Samuel P. Taylor State Park: Marin State Parks Association – marinstateparks.org • Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve: Mono Lake Committee – monolake.org The Bodie Foundation – bodiefoundation.org • McGrath State Beach: Save McGrath State Beach – caopenspace.org/savemcgrath.html • Hendy Woods State Park: Hendy Woods Community, Inc. – hendywoods.org Save the Redwoods League – Almost one-quarter of the parks slated for closure are redwood parks. For more information on how the league will help protect the land once the gates have closed: savetheredwoods.org/community/voice.shtml.

Sierra Club of California – The Sierra Club of California’s environmental news blog with information about the park closures. sierraclubcalifornia.org/category/issues/parks-recreation

Courtesy CSPF

Legislative Analyst ’s Office Report On March 2, 2012, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a comprehensive report on strategies to maintain the state park system. It can be found at http://bit.ly/zK8nRA.

Young supporters of state parks at Big Basin.

Editor: David Loeb Design: David Bullen Cartography: Louis Jaffé and John Kelly, GreenInfo Network Joan Hamilton is a Bay Area environmental writer and editor who enjoys hiking, camping, and kayaking in California state parks. She was formerly chief editor at High Country News, Climbing, and Sierra magazines.

She produces mobile audio tours for people who want to learn more about Bay Area nature. Samples are at audioguidestotheoutdoors.com.

Thanks to the following people for their assistance, advice, and support: Jennifer Benito, Bob Berman, Carol Berman, Diana Colborn, Jerry Emory, Bree Hardcastle, Roy McNamee, Bill Meister, Steve Nilson, Loren Rex, Danita Rodriguez, Alexis Stoxen, Traci Verardo-Torres.

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Blogs and Videos The announcement of the park closures inspired many Californians to get out and see the parks for themselves, while documenting the process through blogs and movies: • californiastateparkstories.blogspot.com • cal4ever.com • christinesculati.com/blog • closingcaliforniaparks.com • folk4parks.org • heathhenfilms.com • stateparkclosurestrip.blogspot.com • www.70in70.com

Get out and see our State Parks this spring!

Saturday, May 12, 9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Join Bay Nature for an Interpretive Hike at Samuel P. Taylor State Park with Paul daSilva, professor of natural history at the College of Marin. Details: baynature.org/inthefield.

Space is limited. RSVP to hikes@baynature.org or (510)528-8550 x205.