Arizona State Parks

[wektech]

I would first like to congratulate the Yuma community for stepping forward to help save the Yuma Territorial Prison from being closed to the public. The people of Yuma really came through to help preserve the heritage of Yuma!

The fate of many other state parks is not so rosy though. State parks across the State of Arizona are slated to be closed due to lack of funding. Many people will say that it is a sign of the times and that the State can no longer subsidize the parks. But what many people do not know is that the Parks did not receive money from the State General Fund. The majority of funds were generated from entrance fees.The remaining funds came from special sources such as boat registrations fees that were designated for improving boating facilities in State Parks and donations made by the public to support the parks system. The Arizona Legislature in their infinite wisdom stripped these funds including the donations from the State Parks for non park uses, leaving no funds available to operate the parks. The Parks Board was then left with no choice but to shutter the park facilities as they had no money left to operate them.

Of course, with the parks being closed there will be no opportunity to generate any new funds in order to operate the parks in the future. The legislature in implementing this short sighted stop gap solution to a budget crisis has essentially doomed the State Parks System to dying a speedy death. The domino effect of closing these parks on nearby communities will result in a significant loss of tourism, which in turn will result in many lost jobs, which in turn will lead to these communities having no tax revenues.

One must really question what the state lawmakers were thinking in raiding these funds in such a manner. The State Parks system was one of the few programs that was pulling its own weight while serving to benefit the economic health of the state. To arbitrarily steal all the funding from the system to the detriment of the people of Arizona, has to be one of the most bone headed moves the State Legislature has come up with yet!