California state parks closures: Henry Coe State Park
Less than an hour from Silicon Valley is Henry Coe State Park, a 136-square-mile preserve with over 200 miles of trails through a vast backcountry of canyons, creeks and woodlands. However, this year, light visitation of the park and low revenues have made California’s second-largest state park a target for closure in the budget battles of California!
You may recall that back in May, the state announced plans to close Henry Coe and 69 other state parks by next summer, in order to save $22 million. Since that time, volunteer groups have been scrambling to raise cash to keep parks OPEN!
As noted before in this blog, it’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature, and it turns out that it is NOT EASY to close 70 state parks! A number of complications have been discovered! The L.A. Times notes:
“At some historic sites, like the Whittier adobe home of Pío Pico, the last governor of California under Mexican rule, and the Glen Ellen ranch of author Jack London, officials will be able to padlock the properties, pack up artifacts and store them in warehouses in Sacramento.
Other parks pose more of a quandary.
How, for instance, will the state gate off a 20-mile stretch of the South Yuba River? And what does it mean to close state beaches at Monterey Bay and Big Sur when California’s stringent Coastal Act prohibits cutting off public access?”
The Times notes that MANY parks will be not so much CLOSED as unsupervised and not maintained. Under some of the plans that are evolving, parks would be left open, but once hikers are inside, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN! Rangers? Lifeguards? Forget about them!
Other concerns? With most of the rangers gone, vandals, poachers, and pot growers may occupy the void!
As for Henry Coe State Park, which generates little money in entrance fees and camping fees, the state estimates that its closure would save almost $600,000 per year! The criteria that are used by the state means that a majority of the park closures would occur in the north, NOT in the densely populated south. For example, the northern city of Mendocino (a very beautiful city, by the way) would lose FIVE surrounding parks to closures! Most of the money that will be saved will result from the layoffs of HUNDREDS of park workers next year.
In the past week, however, state legislators have passed two bills that could make it easier for nonprofit foundations, cities and counties to operate parks. (See, state legislators are not TOTAL blockheads! 
) At Coe, for example, a volunteer group called the Coe Park Preservation Fund has found a benefactor who could keep the park open:
“A $1-million pledge from the group’s treasurer Daniel McCranie, a Silicon Valley businessman and chairman of ON Semiconductor Corp., would pay for the state to operate the park for three years, the group announced Friday. The agreement still must be approved by the California Department of Parks and Recreation, but it has given a burst of optimism to a place where closure seemed all but assured months ago.”
On the Web site of the Coe Park Preservation Fund is the statement, “Henry W. Coe State Park Will Remain Open Through 2015 !”
Businesses may ALSO help to close the budget gaps, but private sector involvement in public lands is not agreeable with everyone! In Ventura County, at popular McGrath State Beach (which could close as soon as November 1), supporters have placed hope in an online Coca-Cola contest to raise funds.
At Henry Coe, Stuart Organo, the ranger in charge of the park, oversees an open space that is THREE TIMES THE SIZE OF San Francisco with three rangers, one maintenance worker and one seasonal aide!
It looks very much like there will be individual solutions for individual parks, as volunteers “step up to the plate.” We wish them the very best!
-Bill at
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