You know I'm a parks advocate and I'm very concerned about the slated closure of 70 California State Parks out of 278 total parks. Unlike threats made before, these cuts have already been enacted into the CA budget. Parks WILL close, which though unclear exactly what that means, certainly includes loss of current park stewardship, protection and preservation. Once those resources are lost or degraded, we'll never be able to get them back. I want my kids to experience these parks and learn about their gorgeous state and its history. I'm afraid the urgency of this issue will be lost if we don't keep it in people's minds. Mainstream media only covers it intermittently.
I know I am only one person. But this one person asked another person for help: Christopher Grant Ward from Folk4Parks.org. You may remember him from this post on my site back when Prop 21 was on the ballot in November 2010: Between Politics and Poetry. Christopher has been a CA State Parks advocate since 2009, and has visited over 200 of these parks in the last two years. He's also been very active in park politics: connecting with political experts, distilling the issues, and helping to give the public a clear picture of the details behind these issues.
After reading Christopher's Prevent Park Closures page, I asked him to create a series of 3-minute videos to break down the problem and offer solutions in little bite-size non-partisan pieces." He answered, "I would definitely be interested in creating 4-8 vlogs over the next few months, pointing out a specific issue, hammering the points home in an artistic way."
Although Prop. 21 failed at the polls, 4,190,793 people voted Yes.
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Thanks so much! You can help keep these parks open just by making sure people are educated and updated about the planned closures. Another great resource for issues and information about taking action is the California State Parks Foundation.
