Looks like the temporary reprieve that the state parks got is going to vanish again. State legislators are planning on shutting all state parks and slashing pay for all state employees (does that include the legislators as well?) in order to save money. Never mind that the state treasurer said that the state could lay off every single state employee and still be in the hole, but oh well.
No much of a person to get on a political rant, but I feel that our legislature over the past decade or so has generally done us a terrible disservice, and their current behavior is right in line with that. Why not let the voters decide themselves if they want a sales tax increase? Uh oh, the uninformed masses might do something that goes ideologically against what you like. Guess what? The public should get the final word, not you. So irritated this morning.
"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon
Roper Lake is mobbed in summer, so it must bring in some revenue, you'd think, but only people from the general area of Safford go there, for the most part. It is their "beach" on a hot day. Sad for them...
Oracle State park was always that relatively unknown one, which a lot of school classes and Scouts would visit. When I went there with my kid's Scout troop you had to make a reservation to get in, as I recall. Did they ever actually open it to the general public?
There is a point of no return unremarked at the time in most lives. Graham Greene The Comedians
A clean house is a sign of a misspent life.
Park closures present new set of security challenges
50 comments by Casey Newton - Feb. 21, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
With the first wave of state park closures set to begin this week, officials are still struggling with basic questions on how to secure the vast properties.
Homolovi Ruins near Winslow and Lyman Lake near St. Johns will close on Monday as a result of steep budget cuts to the parks system. Parks officials will post signs telling visitors about the closures, and a ranger is expected to be on hand to answer questions.
More than a month after the shutdown announcement, officials remain uncertain about how to secure the park perimeters and protect their assets.
The parks staff is particularly worried about Homolovi, which was a playground for looters and vandals before the parks system acquired it in 1986. Parks officials recall finding looters with backhoes digging up the earth in search of valuable clay pots.
Dirt roads from a Navajo reservation and nearby ranches run through the 4,000-acre site, which contains the remains of four ancestral Hopi villages and a host of cultural treasures.
Parks officials must now decide whether to block access points while keeping the site accessible to staff and volunteers who will patrol it.
Securing the 1,500-acre Lyman Lake site presents similar challenges, parks officials said.
"No one's ever done this before," said Ellen Bilbrey, a parks spokeswoman. "They weren't designed to be closed."
Parks staff will take up to 30 days, and almost $200,000, to secure the sites. But some groups are lobbying parks officials to take additional steps at Homolovi, a major site of research on ancestral Hopi culture in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Excavations of the ruins over the last 25 years have allowed archaeologists to document the beginnings of kachina figures in Hopi spiritual practices. They've also shown that ancestral Hopi mass-produced adobe bricks through the use of molds starting in the 1200s, a practice previously thought to have been taught to them by Spanish conquistadors 300 years later.
E. Charles Adams, a University of Arizona archaeologist who has written a book on the Homolovi Ruins, has asked the parks staff to have police-trained security guards patrol the grounds.
Adams' fears include worries that vandals will return to the site and steal ancient pots from burial grounds, vandalize the kivas or destroy a series of petroglyphs on the property.
Adams and the parks staff are working with members of the Hopi community in northern Arizona to see if the tribe will financially support security measures at the site. So far, no agreement has been reached.
After Homolovi and Lyman are secured, the parks staff will have to determine how to close up to 11 more parks, at a cost totaling $1.4 million.
"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon
"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon
Lyman Lake is set to re-open, to be run by Apache County, with donations from Springerville, Eagar, St. Johns, etc. It will be open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. They are going to use our local prisoners to do a lot of the labor around the park. (Prisoners in orange jumpsuits are often seen around our towns doing weedeating, helping with roadwork, etc. Oddly enough, we are used to having them in our front yards, running weedeaters!)
It's a good place to go kayaking, has yurts, cabins and a campground, and great petroglyphs (if you have a boat you can see more of them.)
There is a point of no return unremarked at the time in most lives. Graham Greene The Comedians
A clean house is a sign of a misspent life.
"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon
Arizona board votes to reopen Lyman Lake and Tubac Presidio state parks by Melanie Kiser
Cronkite News Service
Two state parks got new life Wednesday when the Arizona State Parks Board approved partnerships with local officials, but the board's chairman said such efforts will be in vain if the Legislature keeps slashing the agency's budget.
"I just am furious at this anti-feeling toward state parks, and all the money we generate through taxes and in these rural communities is being taken away," Reese Woodling said as the board discussed a revised budget and plans for Lyman Lake State Park and Tubac Presidio State Historic Park.
On Wednesday, the board approved letting Santa Cruz County operate Tubac, the oldest state park, which was targeted for closure. Apache County will provide $40,000 to reopen Lyman Lake, which is south of St. Johns, from late May through early September.
Local governments and community groups told the board they hope to strike similar agreements for Alamo Lake, Lost Dutchman, Picacho Peak and Red Rock state parks by May.
But Arlan Colton and other board members said all of this work will be for naught if the agency loses one of its few profitable parks — Lake Havasu — to its namesake city in a long-term lease. That would be the effect of a bill proposed by Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City.
"This bill is a slap in the face to all those people around the state working cooperatively to save the state parks that don't make money," Colton said. "Lake Havasu, which does make money, cannot only support itself but can also support the park system."
Lake Havasu City officials, who are proposing paying the state $50,000 a year over a 25-year lease, said they fear Arizona State Parks cannot provide adequate and stable funding for their city's biggest attraction.
INTERPRETATION: Our state is too lazy and uninterested in saving our parks, so they are "allowing" counties to come in and pay their bills for them. Is that what it means to be a "fiscal conservative"? This comes from a guy who thought he WAS a conservative! ...
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." — Henry David Thoreau
State parks once targeted for closure to stay open
Jim Walsh and Lindsey Collom
The Arizona Republic
May 6, 2010
Arizona residents proved they love their state parks by opening up their wallets to keep them open after the state Legislature gutted the budget.
Thanks to a combination of public-private partnerships, 13 state parks once targeted for closure are expected to remain open, including a group of five that had been scheduled to shut down June 3.
The State Parks Board is expected to approve the plan to plan keep the parks open at its May 19 meeting.
"When the parks got in trouble, these communities stepped up to keep them open. In a lot of ways, we made new friends or friends we didn't know we have," said Jay Ream, assistant state parks director.
"It's going to be a great summer for the people of Arizona because the parks will remain open," he said.
The news is not all good. Four parks will remain closed - Homolovi Ruins, Jerome, McFarland and Oracle - but there's still hope that some of them may reopen if additional agreements can be worked out with local communities, Ream said.
Officials from Florence and the parks department are discussing the possibility of reopening McFarland State Historic Park, town spokesman Jess Knudson said.
The park is named for longtime U.S. Sen. and Arizona Gov. Ernest McFarland, who is considered the father of the state parks system.
Although fundraising remains ongoing, Arizona State Parks is convinced enough money will become available from a variety of sources to keep the parks open, Ream said. It includes contributions by counties, cities and friends of state parks groups.
The support surfaced after the state Legislature swept $71.7 million from the state parks budget during the 2009 through 2011 fiscal years.
Apache Junction mobilized after Ream told a formative meeting of Friends of Lost Dutchman State Park in March that $24,000 was needed to avoid shutting down the facility from July through September.
An $8,000 donation from a Texas philanthropist, a motorcycle run and a donation by the owners of Superstition Harley-Davidson all contributed toward the effort.
"I think all communities should bridge the gap until they get the funding issue straightened out," said Mark LeResche, the motorcycle dealer. "Lost Dutchman State Park is part of our identity. This helped the community come together."
Friends of Lost Dutchman State Park is recruiting volunteers to collect gate fees from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily to keep the trails open. The campground will be closed on July 6 for renovations aimed at making the park self-sufficient.
Eloy is set to spend up to $20,000 from its contingency fund to help keep Picacho Peak State Park open through the summer months, Mayor Byron Jackson said Wednesday. An intergovernmental agreement will be presented to the City Council at its May 10 meeting.
Picacho Peak, site of the only Civil War battle in Arizona, covers about 3,450 acres in Pinal County. The money is expected to cover the park's projected operating deficit through September.
"We're afraid if it closes, it will never reopen," Jackson said. "That would have a devastating impact on the area."
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." — Henry David Thoreau
NJ is revisiting the park issue yet again. Now the governor is threatening privatization, and there may been talks with Warren Meyer (he was quoted in the paper). There was previously one privatized state park in NJ, very close to my home. It was heavily commercialized. It had restaurants, a big concert venue (capacity ~10,000), facilities for weddings and other such events, etc. It went bankrupt four years ago and has been closed ever since. Note that I said the park went bankrupt. The concessionaires in general did not. They made millions. A large number of historical artifacts were just auctioned off to pay the debts they left behind.
Lyman Lake State Park will be open May 24th through Sept 6th, thanks to donations from Apache County and the towns of Springerville, Eagar and St. Johns, plus Tucson Electric Generating Station. It is between St. Johns and Springerville on 180. Although it is in the White Mountains, sort of, it is not in the pines, but more in the rocks and junipers. It has wonderful petroglyphs which you can kayak or canoe to see, but there are some you can see without having to cross the lake. It has a swimming beach and campground, which has yurts and cabins. Boat ramps, fishing, and a couple of ancient Indian pueblos also. Park website here: http://azstateparks.com/Parks/LYLA/index.html
Do I sound like a tour guide? Good! We need people to come up here and support it! I just posted a photoset of the 'glyphs from last time I went there: http://www.hikearizona.com/photoset.php?ID=11068
I'm not sure they will still have the boat tour to see the glyphs in my photoset. Therefore, bring a canoe or kayak, paddle straight across the lake to see them. Additionally, there are many more that are not on the tour trail, but are across the lake. Hundreds more, in fact. But there is a trail on the near side of the lake with 'glyphs, too.
4th of July, big fireworks party there. Water skiing is allowed, too, but is not seen too often.
There is a point of no return unremarked at the time in most lives. Graham Greene The Comedians
A clean house is a sign of a misspent life.
Park operations: Senate Bill 1349 gives the state Parks Board emergency powers to contract with public or private entities or an Indian tribe to operate state parks for up to a year. The law takes effect immediately.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." — Henry David Thoreau
Nan wrote:A friend of mine is having to rewrite a book she already sent to her publisher - now the main character has to sneak into closed Homolovi park.
How interesting! Now I want to read this!
Oddly enough, part of The Marauders takes place at Homolovi as well...
"The only thing we did was wrong was staying in the wilderness to long...the only thing we did was right was the day we started to fight..."
-Old Spiritual
My book, The Marauders on Lulu and Amazon
plz:
Route Editor
Route Scout
