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By DEREK MOORE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The state is seeking authority to attract bids from concessionaires to potentially operate 11 parks, including six on the North Coast, a move that critics fear is a step toward privatizing these public places.
SSU student Tony Sanders steps over the gate to go for a hike at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Kenwood on Thursday. BETH SCHLANKER/PD
Sugarloaf Ridge State Park east of Kenwood would be bundled with five Central Valley parks to make them more financially attractive to bidders, under a proposal by state parks officials. The state could award contracts for work ranging from operating campgrounds to running entire parks.
Austin Creek State Recreation Area in Guerneville would be bundled with four parks in Mendocino County. The state estimates that each group has combined annual revenues that exceed $500,000.
The park system is merely seeking “one more tool in the tool chest” to attempt to keep as many parks as possible open beyond July 1, said Roy Stearns, a state parks spokesman. That’s when 67 parks are to be shut statewide because of budget limitations.
He said the state would retain control of the parks and that the maximum length of any contract would be five years. “We want them back in the system and will not be proposing to privatize or sell them,” Stearns said.
But Richard Dale, executive director of the Sonoma Ecology Center, called the state’s actions “a little bit of a slap in the face,” saying they could undermine the nonprofit agency’s bid to operate Sugarloaf.
The proposal comes just weeks after “Team Sugarloaf” submitted its bid.
Dale said his group can’t compete with a private company that has the resources to operate multiple parks.
Even awarding a contract to only operate Sugarloaf’s camping sites could deprive the nonprofit consortium of its main revenue source to keep the park open, he said.
Under the state plan, concessionaires would have to give 3 percent of their profits back to the state. But under separate legislation, nonprofits that are awarded operating agreements for parks have to pump all of their proceeds into the park.
“Nonprofits aren’t doing this to get rich,” Dale said. “We’re doing this because we feel it serves the community’s interests to have these parks open.”
In a Jan. 9 letter to State Parks Director Ruth Coleman, Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, requested that the concession bidding process be put on hold because he said nonprofit groups “may legitimately feel blindsided.”
State Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, weighed in on Jan. 13 with a press release labeling the state’s efforts a “big step toward privatization of a public resource.”
“What’s the next proposal, the Wal-Mart State Park and Recreation System?” Evans wrote.
In an interview last week, Evans expressed concerns that lawmakers were not properly notified about the state park plans.
“Something that’s this big of a change, including privatizing some or all of our state parks, requires, in my opinion, a lot of public input,” Evans said.
The state’s Public Works Board, which must approve giving state parks the authority to seek the bids, was set to take up the issue Thursday. But the agenda item was pulled to give staff more time to address some “outstanding concerns,” according to a spokesman.
In her response, parks director Coleman wrote that the state parks system “absolutely commits itself to continuing to explore all possible partnership options — whether with nonprofits, local governments, for-profit companies or hybrids thereof.”
Her spokesman elaborated Friday by pointing out that the parks system has nearly 200 contracts with private entities for such things as operating marinas, restaurants, lodging, equipment rentals, retail shops and snack bars.
“There are many very capable private concession operators out there which have been strong park supporters for decades, and they should be considered as friends, along with nonprofits, in our efforts to preserve and protect our park system as we move to find solutions for a process that none of us likes,” Stearns said.
The Mendocino County parks that are to be bundled with Austin Creek are Russian Gulch State Park in Mendocino, Hendy Woods State Park in Boonville, Westport Union Landing State Beach in Fort Bragg and Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area in Leggett.
Caryl Hart, Sonoma County’s parks director and chairwoman of the California Parks and Recreation Commission, said she supports state parks seeking “maximum authority to enter into agreements that make sense for the park.”
But she does not foresee that including private companies taking over public parks or those efforts undermining the work of nonprofit groups.
“The commission is never going to agree to Wal-Mart State Park,” Hart said. “We name parks and we have authority over concession agreements.”
Hart said the focus is being lost on the “very bad decisions” made by Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers to close 70 parks to save an estimated $22 million, an amount Hart likened to a “rounding error.”
In addition to Sugarloaf and Austin Creek, Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa, Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen and the Petaluma Adobe are among the other Sonoma County parks identified to be closed July 1.
“It will have almost no impact on the state budget, but the impact of the local economies and the state of California is devastating,” she said.
An agenda item seeking authorization for state parks to enter into an operating agreement with Sonoma County to operate Annadel also was pulled from the state Public Works’ agenda.
Hart said she will present the plans to county supervisors at their Jan. 31 meeting.
You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com.
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While we’re at it, let’s encourage publicly traded corporations to take over our state and national parks. Their “responsibility” to maximize profit for their share-holders will lead to beautiful ideas like holding a Super Bowl at Yosemite.
The problem with the Park System is the high salaries and even higher retirement benefits that the public employee unions have gained through the bribery of public officials with campaign donations and manpower. Businesses who regularly lose money go out of business, government on the other hand just taxes and spends more. There is no “downside” for a politician who is bribed or the public employee union who bribes him/her…after all it’s only been in the last couple of decades that it’s been legal…and they unions have been working on it from before public employee unions were legal…arrggghhh!!! Reduce the salaries to the levels that would be paid by a private corporation that would be making a profit and take the same cost saving measures as a private company would and the State will save…the parks will be open and the only people upset will be the politicians who won’t get as much from the public employee unions in bribes/campaign donations…or whatever you want to call them.
I can see a positive with having ‘concessions’ like hot dog stands, boat rentals, etc. But turning over the whole operation is lunacy.
The requirements for bidding will favor a large corporate entity, after they pay money to some Legislators.
Cut somewhere else, especially the ” study grants “. Besides offices full of Parks employees that never see a park. Plenty of paper shufflers and administrators are there that nobody would notice that they are gone.
This whole subject proves to me that we are in a downfall from which there is no escape. Sorry
Most people don’t see the reality of closing parks. The Parks budget is a relatively minor cost. I think the budget is around $150 million a year. Peanuts compared to what the State wastes DAILY.
It may cost even more in lost revenue to the State ! Add up the gas taxes, the restaurant tabs, tourist style purchases, motel stays, etc.
Then figure in lost jobs that we have to pay unemployment for instead of receiving payroll taxes from.
THAT should be the REAL story ! Why do they cut a cheap service that may lose money overall by closing the Parks ?
It reeks of insanity and State Government ineptness, and of course the sheeple that swallow anything that this corrupt Legislature does.
Average Joe-I think your post is hilarious. As someone from inside government will tell you (I’m talking about rank and file staff, mind you) contracting out is a big issue for frontline employees. Managers keep their high pay, perks and government paid deferred compensation, pad their pensions and so on while they make the decisions to get rid of the skilled employees and contract out their jobs. Ratios of rank and file staff need to be looked at and if those ratios are small, the MANAGEMENT positions need to be cut. Management salaries and benefits are what’s eating up our taxes. ONE cut management position can fund 2 to 3 rank and file staff.
It’s definitely not a trick to fool us taxpayers into thinking we need more public staff (at least at the level that works with the public). As I’ve said before, contracting out always costs the taxpayers more for less.
Contracting out ALWAYS costs the taxpayers more for less. This has been proven, statistically, over and over again. Not only will the public employees be replaced with employees who will get lousy pay and have no skills, but the private enterprise will be able to charge whatever they want and huge profits will always affect their decision making.
The county keeps its high paid management, lays off frontline employees and contracts out those services. We all pay taxes, I do too, and I resent the fact that managers keep their jobs at the expense of the rank and file county workers WHO ARE SKILLED AT THEIR JOBS AND CARE ABOUT THE PUBLIC.
Bear
How can you demand that anyone “Give me your numbers and defend your rants” when you don’t give any numbers or any facts or logic defend any of your rants?
How will privatization improve the economy in the long run?
“
Sure let’s privitize everything. Schools, cops, fire protection, water supply, sewage treatment, healthcare, social services for legals and illegals –everything
Some areas are better served by privatization than others and grouping them ll together just lets those who are opposed to privatization harp on the worst examples and ignore the ones that work the best. The issue of illegal aliens is a separate issue and a red-herring as to the issue of privatization. Why not include pedophiles in your list just to pump up some support against privatization.
I don’t really care about the train. You’ll pay for it when you need it.
That’s a big problem. Not very many people, if any, need the train and so they will never pay for (I assume you mean pay for it by riding it and paying the fare- they will be forced to pay for it through taxation). That’s why it’s a government sinkhole for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
“But privatization will cost MORE than what you’re paying now.”
“WHEN PUBLIC SERVICES GO PRIVATE Taxpayers save 20% or more by using contractors to provide government services — sweeping streets, manning air control towers, running golf courses. Risks crop up among the opportunities, but canny officials are learning what to watch out for”.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1985/05/27/65853/index.htm
“When you eliminate government, you give ultimate power to the contractors who provide the services”.
Not if the remaining government managers are doing their job. And if they are not, maybe we should privatize them, too. If you read closely, many of the privatization “horror stories” the IT area seems to have more than its share of those – the main problem was poor and faulty contracting and contract management by the contracting governmental unit. Another theme that runs through many privatization “horror stories” is that they were “no bid” or rigged bid contracts involving corrupt government officials accepting bribes. The same thing occurs when the government employee unions donate money and resources to the politicians that will support their featherbedding and onerous pensions. These are problems with government – not with privitization.
“Myth: Privatization involves a loss of public control.
Fact:This myth involves a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of privatization—that government loses control of an asset or service once it is privatized since the public sector is no longer providing that service. In well-structured privatization initiatives the government and taxpayers gain accountability. In fact, the legal foundation of a privatization initiative is a contract that spells out all of the responsibilities and performance expectations that the government partner will require of the contractor. No detail is too small for the contract. Any failure to meet the performance standards specified in the contract could expose the contractor to financial penalties, and in the worst-case scenario, termination of the contract.
So government never loses control—in fact, it can actually gain more control of outcomes—in well-crafted privatization arrangements. For example, state officials in Indiana have testified that they were able to require higher standards of performance from the concessionaire operating the Indiana Toll Road than the state itself could provide when it ran the road, precisely because they specified the standards they wanted in the contract and can now hold the concessionaire financially accountable for meeting them.
http://reason.org/news/show/local-government-privatization-101
“Within a few years they’ll rob you blind,”
If government is so efficient, it should be able to use contract management, just like the private sector, to audit, bid out, review the contracts it enters into to keep its contracts competitive
And even if the private contractors do rob us blind if a few years, at least that there would be a “few years” between when the government is robbing us blind and the private contractors start robbing us blind.
“and the money will go to the owners of the private firms.
And as anyone with any understanding of –of – well of reality – knows, the owners will then have to hire employees, buy materials and supplies, purchase equipment, pay utilities, pay taxes, pay more taxes and all the other expenses that are incurred to perform the contracts. It’s not like those evil owners get to pocket all of the money.
“They will employ the cheapest labor possible (illegals?!)”
Whether the functions are performed by the government or the private sector, they both should employ the cheapest qualified legal labor possible. Are you implying that the government overpays for labor? If so, it might be the one rant that you got correct. And if government overpays for labor, that’s just an argument for privatization. And if government overpays for labor, isn’t cheating the taxpayers by not providing the most services for the tax dollars spent?
The biggest reason we have illegal aliens competing with US workers is because of your highly efficient government, from the Federal down to the city levels, is not only failing but outright refusing to do their jobs to protect our borders and deport illegal aliens. Not only is the government not keeping illegal aliens out, the government provides them with special benefits such as in-state tuition and scholarships, all to the detriment of the middle class that you claim to be so concerned about.
“offshore all the revenue they can, and pocket the profits without paying the taxes you do (ask Mitt Romney).”
You need to read more about the difference between ordinary income and investment income. Contractors doing work in US will have ordinary income and pay taxes on those profits. What’s left over will their net income after taxes and they can go invest that anywhere they want. If you don’t like our tax system, then rant about that but it has little or no relevance to the privatization of public services issue.
Neither does that fact that you don’t like Romney. I assume that you are OK with big government, socialist Obama, who by the way, is also a millionaire, but he has made his money at the expense of the taxpayers and through corruption. (Just one example, The University of Chicago gave his wife a $100,000 plus raise to do little or nothing when he became a US senator because – well because US senators cost more to bribe than state senators You don’t think he made a million bucks off of his ghost written books because people wanted to read the story of a Muslim kid who was raised by socialists, who then got into Harvard because of affirmative action, who hung out with people that killed police, and then mastered the Chicago political system, do you?
“Middle class jobs with middle class benefits will be lost”,
Middle class jobs with middle class benefits are being lost now because of a number of factors. Some of those factors are the ever increasing costs of government regulations and the poor quality of public education Public education is dominated by the teachers unions and could benefit from privatization itself.
Your real concern with privatization seems to be that it will reduce middle class government jobs with pensions and other benefits that are far better than what most middle class people can obtain. The excessive cost of government (or the reduced delivery of services, roads, parks, good schools) impacts the most on the middle class. The poor don’t pay as much in taxes and it does not matter as much to the rich. So don’t act like you’re concerned about the middle class in general as opposed to the government employed middle class.
“and we can all live in Walmart world”.
A number of surveys have indicated that public officials believed service quality was better after privatization. In a survey of 89 municipalities conducted in 1980, for example, 63 percent of public officials responding reported better services as a result of contracting out. P.S. Florestano and S.B. Gordon, “Public vs. Private: Small Government Contracting with the Private Sector,”Public Administration Review, No. 40, 1980, 29-34.
All that said, privatization of public services is a very complex issue but a reasoned review of the issues would indicate that there are number of areas where privatization can deliver more and better services to the taxpayers than non-privatization if done correctly.
So, “Give me your numbers and defend your rants”.
There is a hidden cost to privatization. When the initial “low ball” bid does not suit the contractor, it will begin to scrimp on performance. At that point, we will either live with poor performance or pay the hidden cost of energetic contract administration.
Well, if it were a Walmart Park system, then maybe camping fees would be reduced to the services they offer. $30 bucks a night for no water, no power and no dump station and rude campground hosts is ridiculous when you can go to an RV park for the same price or a few bucks more and have all these services AND a PLEASANT campground host!
@Social Dis-Ease
You really nailed it!
“Fascism” It’s all the rage…
Isn’t it ironic that the “Summer of Love” generation spent their youth protesting against the Fascists only to grow old and become the very thing they fought to stop?
“The bottles stand as empty now, as they were filled before
Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more
Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few
Don’t lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools”
ICLEI SHA-NAN-A-GANS.
It’s time to ask THE QUESTION.
This is happening all over the Country.
Two fold.
Keep raising taxes, but with reduced/privatized services, more misappropriation of funds.
Also they can isolate/blame when the Wildlands Project really kicks into gear.
But they’ll find money for the train to tyranny, huh?
Sure let’s privitize everything. Schools, cops, fire protection, water supply, sewage treatment, healthcare, social services for legals and illegals -everything.
I don’t really care about the train. You’ll pay for it when you need it.
But privatization will cost MORE than what you’re paying now. When you eliminate government, you give ultimate power to the contractors who provide the services. Within a few years they’ll rob you blind, and the money will go to the owners of the private firms. They will employ the cheapest labor possible (illegals?!), offshore all the revenue they can, and pocket the profits without paying the taxes you do (ask Mitt Romney).
Middle class jobs with middle class benefits will be lost, and we can all live in Walmart world.
Give me your numbers and defend your rants. How will privatization improve the economy in the long run?
How do you operate multiple parks on $500,000 revenue? That’s like maybe 5 employees and a couple of trucks?
This is financial trickery on t he part of the State to make privatization look like a horrible solution. What is not being counted is the internal budget the parks have for manpower, maintenance, and security.
So it should be something more like 5,000,000 budget. Nice try fast hands.
Governor Moonbeam II would rather hold the State Parks and Schools as a hostage to ram through his sales tax increase so he can waste more money on his bullet train to L.A. than actually attack the real problems with the State budget.
And Noreen is just a pawn for whoever sends her a check. Seeing as it’s currently State employees and Prison Guards, we know who’s praises she’s going to be singing for.
Noreen Evans is a clown and those who voted for her are equally sponge-brained.
She would rather the state parks remain closed because the state would rather spend, sorry, waste money on free meals for illegals, free medical for illegals, bloated salaries, unnecessary departments, a free car for herself, more and more government intrusion in our lives and complete control of the citizens of CA.
As a lifelong camper who has seen his childhood campground closed because of “budget cuts”, though NO CUT TO BLOATED PENSIONS(!!!!), more and more fees and fines, increasing taxes and the worst business environment on the planet, at what point will the Sheeple realize the Legislature IS THE PROBLEM, not the solution??
TRADITIONAL GOVERNMENTAL DOMAIN:
* Privatization.
* Reduction.
* Noncommunication.
* Falsification.
* Reclassification.
* Molestation.
* Aggregation (‘Stakeholders’).
* Redefinition.
* Polarization.
* Urbanization.
* Misinformation.
* Reconfiguration.
* Elimination.
* Nonparticipation.
* Placation
* Corruption.
* Increased Taxation.
* Miscalculation.
* Misrepresentation.
* Covert Profitization.
* Revenue Diversion.
* Federalization.
* Abrogation.
* Centralization.
* Reconfiguration.
* Confiscation.
* Dissatisfaction.
* Asset Absorption.
* Assimilation.
* Illigitimate Authorization.
* Polarization.
* Distortion.
* Bloviation.
* Collaboration
( ‘Public-Private Partnership’)
* Contradiction.
* Collude with a Corporation.
* Criminalization.
* Decimation.
* Impersonizilation.
* Infestation.
* Taking Donation.
* Fabrication.
* Reconfiguration.
* Globalization.
* Hyperinflation.
* Illegalization.
* Promotion of Immigration.
* Incarceration.
* Misappropriation.
PRIVATE DOMAIN:
* Monopolization.
OR
* Destruction.
Isn’t fascism grand?
The problem with this is not so much private companies running the park…the problem is the state spends billions of dollars on so many social programs that help a small percentage of Californians and Illegals that the majority of the population is suffering and paying for it. I am damn tired of paying the highest tax in the country and getting nothing in return. It is time to cut all these programs and a basic public education system. You want anything more, you pay for it as you go..bottom line! People complain about the school budget getting cut but what do you expect to be cut when over 60% of revenue goes to schools…less than 10% covers parks, roads, infrastructure…and now even that tiny piece within the 10% has to be cut…bad bad news for California…not only those with money will leave but so will the educated along with the companies that employ them. That is not a story of doom, it is a story of reality.
“What’s the next proposal, the Wal-Mart State Park and Recreation System?” Evans wrote.
Wal-Mart is the most successful business in US, has millions of happy customers, is opening new stores, makes a profit and is not behind on its pension obligations. So maybe a Wal-Mart State and Parks Recreation System is better than a bunch of closed, abandoned, bankrupt state operated parks? (Claimer: no relation to Wal-Mart). Could be that just the thought of something not under the total control of the State legislature upsets Noreen.
The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite is a concessioner of the National Park Service. No one seems concerned that a national park ranger doesn’t carry your bags.
The state parks could fit nicely into the concessioner concept and actually see an upgrade in service, cleanliness, operational and financial efficiency.