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By SAM SCOTT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
In healthier days, Polly Otwell might have clambered over rocks and down trails to get to one of Sonoma County’s cliff-lined beaches.
But eight months after suffering a stroke, the 57-year-old Santa Rosa resident was content to drive to within a stone’s throw of the waves at the parking lot next to Goat Rock.
“I am thankful I can just step out of the truck,” Otwell said, admiring Monday’s crystal clear sky. “It’s beautiful.”
Things may not be as easy next time she returns.
For the second year running, the lot where Otwell parked is slated to close until summer. It’s one of many cutbacks about to hit California’s financially strapped state parks.
According to the state’s website, the South Goat Rock parking lot and bathroom will close Wednesday for seven months, opening July 1.
Similar cuts are expected at sites along the Sonoma Coast including Bodega Dunes, Blind Beach and Russian Gulch. At Austin Creek State Recreation Area in Guerneville, camp sites will close through June. And the Fort Ross Historic Area will close on weekdays.
The curtailed hours are a repeat of last year, when more than half California’s 278 state parks reduced hours and services to offset a $14 million budget reduction, said Roy Sterns, a parks spokesman.
Victoria Khomenko and her dog, Dake, walk up the trail at Goat Rock Beach. The parking lot will close Wednesday due to budget cuts at state parks. BETH SCHLANKER/PD
In many cases, hours and access were curtailed until summer, when higher revenues and increased use made it sensible to ramp up, he said.
State parks boosters had hoped voters would make further reductions unnecessary. But Proposition 21 — a proposal to increase vehicle license fees to benefit the parks — was shot down this month by 57 percent of voters.
With only a day before the latest cuts are scheduled, Sonoma County’s reductions are not yet inevitable, Sector Superintendent Linda Rath said.
Even though the reduced hours already appear online, officials may still tweak them, she said. One option would be to close the lot for Schoolhouse Beach rather than South Goat Rock, she said.
That would please Otwell and others who enjoy its easy beach access. The lot also is a favorite of dog owners who cannot use Goat Rock’s main beach, home to a colony of harbor seals.
Some pet lovers got around last year’s closure by parking at Goat Rock’s main lot and walking over to South Goat Rock. But for many, the distance is too far to contemplate.
Sam and Nicole Eleen, for example, parked at South Goat Rock on Monday with their 12-year-old daughter Andrea, a cancer patient who will soon start another round of chemotherapy. She also has physical and mental disabilities.
Carrying her from the beach to the South Goat Rock parking lot didn’t look easy for her father, but at many other local beaches it would have been impossible.
“I like this,” said Sam Eleen, a Petaluma resident. “You’re not coming down a cliff like some of these places.”
Brad Evans, director of the Sonoma Coast Visitors Center, said he did not expect the cuts to impact local tourism. Many visitors are unaware of them, he said. And at the coast, there are many beaches to chose from.
Last year’s reductions didn’t generate many complaints, Rath said. “There wasn’t much reaction.”
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Parks threatened with closure (again)? A local superintendent for State Parks calls LandPaths’ “People Powered Parks” program “armor against the budget ax.” Through this program, park users-turned-stewards have kept over 5400 acres in Sonoma County open to the public.
See our website for more details on how “people power” can be part of the solution:
http://www.landpaths.org/index.cfm/page/People-Power-Inclusive-Access–Care-for-our-Public-Lands-in-Budget-Lean-Times/
You can still get in on your bicycles, I did!
While there are many things I’d cut in government before closing parks, it is particularly sad how few people are willing to pay a user fee sufficient to make this unnecessary.
Jelacic’s avilised
Shame on the State Parks and Recreation for closing parks rather then wasteful departments.
Shame on Matt Wells, thinking voters are responsible for the budget problems.
Shame on the people who leave trash behind when the receptacle is only a few feet away.
Shame on all the rules and regulations governing our state parks that favor only some activities.
Shame on the department heads for not asking for public input, I would be willing to bring my own TP or a small trash bag, or spank the punk kid that tag’s and or destroy bathrooms.
We can’t even consider cutting useless State government agencies such as Cal Air Resources Board (CARB) but, we can sure close beaches to punish taxpayers. Where is Noreen Evans on this? If she is such a genius with the State budget, why isn’t she getting this taken care of? Oh! That’s right. She is on the beach in Maui with the junket crowd.
Shame on all you Prop 21 “No” voters.
I’m just guessing here, but do you think our elected reps enjoying all-expense paid junkets to Hawaii give a rip? Why worry about the folks back home when someone else pays for your Hawaiian vacation?