State park closures to include Sonoma Mission, Jack London Park

Sonoma’s Mission, the Vallejo House, Sugarloaf Ridge and Jack London’s Glen Ellen Ranch are among the 220 state parks slated for closure after Labor Day, part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $5.5 billion budget cut.
The plan would slash $70 million, about half of the parks department budget. The following budget year would be even grimmer, eliminating all general funds to the system and forcing state park, campground and beaches to stay closed for at least 18 months.
“This is the greatest threat the state parks system has faced in its 150-year history,” said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation, in a Web posting. “It will have a profound and devastating impact.”
Ten Sonoma County facilities are on the shutdown list, including Annadel and Petaluma Adobe. The proposed park closures come in “what would have been a record year,” said CSPF spokesperson Jerry Emory, surpassing the 80 million visitor days the system logged last year, an all-time high.
“The parks budget is going to take a hit,” Assemblymember Jared Huffman told The Sun. While the Governor’s categorical action would “gut the park system for the next decade,” Huffman, chair of the water, parks and wildlife committee, hopes to “take a look on a case-by-case basis for some temporary options. We’ve got to be much more creative and thoughtful about the way we allocate and absorb the cuts.”
There is more at stake than lost user fees, Goldstein said. “Closed parks also cause revenue losses to the local economy. This is not the time to be causing further economic turmoil in communities around the state.”
The Mission on the Plaza and the General Vallejo home, both part of Sonoma State Historic Park, is promoted as a must-see attraction by the Sonoma Valley  Visitors Bureau. “History is part of who we are,” said executive director Wendy Peterson, who remains hopeful of a compromise. “There’s still a lot of speculation as to what might happen. “We’re crossing our fingers.”
Sonoma State Historic Park also includes the Sonoma Barracks and servants’ quarters, the Toscano Hotel and the Blue Wing Inn. It had 459,365 visitors last fiscal year, while Jack London had 53,590 and Sugarloaf 96,653 in the same period.
For every dollar that funds the parks, according to the CSPF, $2.35 is returned to the state’s general fund via economic activities in nearby communities. “That means eliminating all funding for state parks could actually result in the state losing over $350 million in revenue,” Goldstein said.
The $70 million cut would leave funding for only 59 of California’s 279 state parks through next June, the end of the fiscal year. Re-opening the closed parks would be expensive, the CSPF said, and concerns such as security and fire prevention at shuttered sites have yet to be addressed.
Huffman said the proposed cuts would set the park system back ten years. “You don’t just turn the system back on with the flip of a switch,” he said.
Last year the legislature denied a Schwarzenegger proposal to cut park funding, but the political climate is much different now. “This is a fiscal crisis unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” Huffman said.
Facing a huge deficit, and taking the May 19 special election as a message that voters will not support tax hikes, lawmakers are resigned to making cuts.  “This is not posturing,” said Emory.
The foundation has launched the Save Our State Parks campaign, which connects concerned citizens with their representatives to protest the proposed closures..