[Occupymendocino] From the California State Parks Foundtion

[Richard Karch]

Dear Richard,

Over the last several weeks, we have shared our reactions to the news about undisclosed, unspent funds related to state parks. In addition, last month we sent the governor and the legislative leaders specific recommendations for actions to restore public confidence and maintain access and support for California’s state parks.

The most critical recommendation among those we proposed to policy leaders is to direct the recently-identified funds back into our state parks.

We need your help to reinforce this recommendation with your legislators and demand that those funds are not used to fill other general budget holes.

We are specifically concerned that the $20.3 million in State Park and Recreation Funds (SPRF) revenues -- which come from money from fees for day-use admission or parking, overnight camping or boating, and more -- is becoming a tempting target for budget-raiding.

After more than 14 months of tremendous work in communities around the state to keep our parks open, the Legislature should not divert these park funds outright or use a budgetary “bait and switch” tactic that puts the money back into the parks budget on one side of the ledger, but subtracts crucial General Fund support to our state parks. This would leave our state parks worse off and miss an opportunity when the Legislature can and should do the right thing to try to restore confidence. As we said in our July 25 letter to legislative leaders: “To contemplate that those funds could be siphoned and directed to another state budget purpose would add insult to injury.“

Time is of the essence. Please use our online system to take action today to send a message to your legislators and the governor urging them to allocate these recently-identified funds back into our state park system. Your action is extremely important, as policymakers are expected to make a decision in the next two weeks about how to allocate this funding.

Sincerely,



Elizabeth Goldstein
President

LETTER TO SIGN:   https://secure3.convio.net/cspf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=333
 
California State Parks Foundation
50 Francisco St, Suite 110 San Francisco, CA 94133 
448 South Hill Street, Suite #601 Los Angeles, CA 90013
1510 J Street, Suite 220 Sacramento, CA 95814	This message was sent to rkarch at mcn.org.
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