Letter to Governor Jerry Brown Protesting Closure of California's State Parks

This letter was sent June 9, 2011.

Dear Governor Brown,

I protest the planned closures of any of California’s State Parks. These parks are our heritage and our legacy to our future generations. In your recent budget proposal, you seek to fund our state’s schools to the full extent possible. While I laud your support for schools, the California State Parks are educational aids that cannot be equaled by any videos or photos studied by students in a classroom. When a student visits one of our parks, he or she gets to see first-hand the environments and historical sites that contributed to our cultural and environmental diversity. Our parks represent the best progressive spirit of our state’s heritage. To close our state’s parks is a crime against our children’s’ futures.

Governor, if you seek to move California’s government toward a program of austerity, then perhaps you should review the salaries of your staff and senior department officials. According to the Salary Transparency website (http://www.transparency.ca.gov), in 2009, the Secretary for Environmental Protection received $158,208 in pay. In the governor’s office, the Senior Assistant to the Governor received $167,994 in salary that same year. Others received salaries of comparable size including Ruth Coleman, Director of Parks and Recreation, who received $129,294 in compensation. Additionally, the website for California’s State Senate reveals that members of the Senate received salaries of approximately $94,000 or more. If these leaders are truly public servants, why do they receive compensation equal to private for-profit corporations? Rather than cut funding to the Department of Parks and Recreation, funding for salaries of elected officials and non-civil service appointees need to be cut and limited annually to not more than the mean income for California residents or $48,000, whichever is less. Also, eliminate travel expenses across the board for legislators, yourself, the state’s Supreme Court justices, and all non-civil service appointees. If our state’s leaders cannot support themselves on $4,000 a month, then something is seriously wrong with our government. Government service in a representative democracy is not about becoming a millionaire.

California State Parks represent 150 years of our cultural and intellectual development. To spare the parks, I propose that you, by executive order, decentralize operations of the parks system to the district level with all associated revenues from fees being directed to accounts unavailable to General Fund financial liabilities. The local costs of operations would consequently be the responsibilities of the regional parks districts. Parks closures would then be determined by local interests and necessity rather than the vagaries of the political give-and-take of Sacramento. Furthermore, I encourage you, sir, to continue to promote the establishment of private not-for-profit entities for the assumption of operations in those parks that are slated to be closed. The park system could then evolve into a collaboration between private citizens who volunteer, regional economic organizations, and parks districts.

Again, I protest the draconian solution of closing any of California’s valuable state parks. The issues associated with the deficit are due to legislative and executive branches’ irresponsibility. Let the members of those branches of government carry the burden of spending cuts rather than the repositories of California’s heritage.

Sincerely,

Matthew Reed