In Sandusky, OH, a local man decided to do his part to help out his city by mowing his neighborhood park. After watching local children running through the untended, knee-high grass of Central Park to catch the bus, John Hamilton went home to get his lawn mower. When the police appeared a little while later he was shocked to learn that his civic action wasn't appreciated by the city. When he refused to stop mowing the park lawn he was actually arrested, handcuffed and taken away in a police cruiser! For mowing the lawn of a public park that had been neglected by his city! This is how Mr. Hamilton is repaid for stepping up to make his city a better place for children to play.

This is not the message we should be sending to Americans during these hard times. We should instead invoke the famous words of John F. Kennedy and asking what "you can do for your country"? Parks are crucially important to the fabric of our civic society. Parks bring people together in the outdoors, to celebrate physical activity, nature, play and even contemplation. They are truly democratic - open to all regardless of race, age, wealth or physical ability. What better example is there of an involved citizenry in a democracy than a neighbor stepping up to maintain his community's public park when the city lacks the funds to do so. Mr. Hamilton should be receiving the city of Sandusky's thanks - not a court summons.

A month later, a different Pennsylvania court took an opposing view of the public trust doctrine in the "In Re: Erie Golf Course" case. In 2007, the city of Erie tried to sell one of three municipal golf courses that it had closed to save money. The course had operated at a deficit for at least four times in the previous decade and was appraised at $1.8 million. The Lake Erie Region Conservancy and the Committee to Keep Erie golf Course Open argued that the course should be kept open or maintained as a public park.

A deeply divided Commonwealth Court panel ruled 4 to 3 that a municipality may sell dedicated public land if they determine it is no longer fiscally practical to maintain it. If this ruling stands, it would set an extremely dangerous precedent that allows public officials to close parks based soley on budgetary considerations. Given the current funding climate and the number of parks that are facing budget shortfalls - this interpretation of public trust ownership responsiblities could lead to a massive sell off of public trust lands.

Park advocates should be watching these two appeals very closely and should consider filing amicus briefs in support of a strict reading of the public trust doctrine. Contact Defense of Place for more information.

Senate Bill 679 introduced by Senator Lois Wolk, indicates that lands used as state parks cannot be used for non-park purposes without an act of the Legislature and the provision of substitute lands of equal environmental and fair market value. SB 679 requires that if it is decided that parkland should be put to a different use, then lands of equal environmental and fair market value, and in proximity to state park lands being disrupted or disposed, must be provided as substitutes.

Senate Bill 372 by Senator Christine Kehoe establishes an appropriate process for protecting state parks from projects or proposals that are inconsistent with the use and purposes of the parks. It would make it so that only the Legislature, on the recommendation of the state Park and Recreation Commission, can authorize uses of a state park that are inconsistent with park purposes. Senate Bill 372 is modeled on existing state law that requires review and legislative action prior to alteration of other conservation lands. It is appropriate to vest the State Park and Recreation Commission (Commission) with a role in securing the future of California's state park system as the Commission currently has important responsibilities classifying and naming state parks, approving and amending General Plans, and providing annual reports on the programs, activities, and future needs of the state park system.

"Defense of Place is an organization dedicated to ensuring the perpetual protection of parks, open spaces and wildlife refuges. We strongly support the importance of parks for the well being of our communities and our environment. (www.defenseofplace.org) Unfortunately, we have seen too often that starving parks of much needed funding leads to privatization and ultimately the sale of parkland.

On the surface, the plan to fund parks with an optional driver’s license fee seems reasonable but there are some fundamental flaws with this approach that raise concern for the long-term viability of the park system. The proposed fee is not an actual user fee – which is both part of its appeal and its downfall. Attaching a fee to a targeted group of Michigan citizens will likely have the opposite effect of what the bills’ supporters intend—in the long run it will undermine public support for public parks. As people adjust to the proposed fee structure, they will no longer recognize that access to parks is a right of all citizens and will feel that they are the responsibility only of those who have taken on the burden of paying for them.

The State of Michigan must recognize its essential governmental role and obligation to perpetually support Michigan’s state parks. This has been true during other bad economic times and it is true today. When a group of Michiganders is asked to volunteer to privately donate to fund the parks, it puts into question the true public nature of the park system.

All of Michigan’s state parks belong to all of the people, for all time. Generations before us understood that commitment when they acquired and designated these lands as public parks, sometimes at great expense and sacrifice to themselves. The act of creating a park is a pact with future generations. It’s up to all of us to reaffirm that commitment as a State and not require that of only a subset of our citizens.

Putting the entire burden of supporting the park system on a smaller group of Michigan citizens is a step on the path to privatization. This type of “opt out” fee attached to driver’s licenses has neither been tested by the courts nor proved to be successful over time in other states. Instead of pursuing this relatively unproven system, Michigan should look to other states like Missouri whose sales-tax supported system has proved successful over a longer period. If this funding plan fails, what is the public to think next? If owners of some Michigan vehicles fail to privately donate enough money to the state park system, what will the fate of our park system be then?

Privatization forces are vocal and will not stop calling for greater privatization of Michigan parks. The path to privatization often follows the same pattern: supporters of privatization distrust government’s ability to carry out important public services like parks maintenance, they call for private takeover of these services, while at the same time pushing for decreases in parks budgets, insisting that parks should “pay for themselves,” and when that fails the obvious solution to them is private ownership. The State has already gone partly down this road and resorted to the sale of state parkland, such as at Bald Mountain and Proud Lake State Recreation Areas.

I want to commend you for your efforts to find adequate funding for Michigan’s park system. However, I must encourage you to look further for a more equitable long term funding solution. We must find a way to fund our state park system with public dollars from all the people of the state. Keep the park system firmly in the public trust."

If you are a resident of California, I urge you to contact your state Senator and ask them to support these two important park protection bills. For more information visit the CA state legislature's website for bill text (SB 372) and (SB 679) and for analyses of SB 372 and SB 679. For a sample letter to your Senator visit the Surfrider blog.

Our parks are an important part of our national heritiage. We need stimulus funds to bring these public recreational lands back to a fully functional state. If this decay is allowed to continue, soon politicians will be arguing for their privatization and/or sale. Once parks are gone they are almost impossible to replace!

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- While more Tennesseans are vacationing in affordable state parks, many are disappointed to find the aging facilities with broken plumbing, rusty equipment and chipping paint.

A national professional group of civil engineers ranked Tennessee a D-plus for its state parks and officials say a tight budget has created a $100 million backlog of maintenance projects at its 54-park system.

Still experts say there's no safety risk to the more than 30 million visitors to state parks this past year. More are expected to visit in 2009.

Richard Jones, a co-author of the Tennessee Infrastructure report card, told the Tennessean that besides the budget problems and mounting maintenance issues, many of the parks infrastructure is over 60 years old.

From the Tennessean, April 8, 2009

The LWCF Coalition urged the Subcommittee to set the course towards a goal of full funding for the LWCF by including substantial funding increases in the Fiscal Year 2010 Interior appropriations bill for these two important programs. We recommended increasing the funding of federal LWCF to $325 million, stateside LWCF to $125 million, and the allocation of $125 million for the Forest Legacy program.

TESTIMONY BEFORE THE
HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT AND RELATED AGENCIES CONCERNING FISCAL YEAR 2010 APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND AND INCREASED OVERSIGHT OF THE STATE LWCF GRANT PROGRAM

MARCH 26, 2009

This testimony is submitted by Shannon Meyer, Executive Director of Defense of Place, a national non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the permanent protection of park lands, open spaces and wildlife refuges given into the public trust.

Chairman Dicks, Ranking Member Simpson and other members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony. We would like to thank the Subcommittee for increasing funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) in the Fiscal Year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill. Defense of Place and our constituents applaud the Obama Administration’s commitment to fully fund the LWCF in the next five years. As proposed in the President’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget we strongly encourage increasing the funding of federal LWCF to $325 million, stateside LWCF to $125 million, as well as allocating $125 million for the Forest Legacy program.

Increasing LWCF funding for public outdoor recreation lands is great news for communities across the nation that benefit from the recreational lands purchased or enhanced with this fund. However, lands set aside for recreational use and funded with LWCF are not necessarily safe from the threat of development as we have seen in a few cases across the country. Several cases we have unfortunately seen states or municipalities circumventing LWCF conversion requirements in order to sell LWCF funded public recreation lands for development or other private use. Defense of Place whole heartedly supports the increase of funding to the LWCF and exhorts the Obama administration to strengthen oversight of the program to make sure existing LWCF funded lands remain open to the public for recreational use.

I would like to take this opportunity to briefly outline three different cases where parklands are being sold and / or converted to private uses contrary to what we see as the best interests of the recreating public. Each park discussed below, received funding through the state grant program of the LWCF and is now targeted by developers for conversion to private use. In each of these cases, we have asked the Department of Interior through the National Park Service to intervene in order to ensure that the public’s rights to their recreational lands are preserved. I highlight these examples here as evidence of the need for more rigorous oversight of a very worthwhile program that should in no way be curtailed because of the misdeeds of a few.

Jean Klock Park Michigan: This 74-acre park on the shores of Lake Michigan was deeded to the City of Benton Harbor in 1917 to be forever “open for the use and benefit of the public”. The park received a $50,000 grant from the LWCF in 1976 for infrastructure improvements. Now the City has leased 22 acres in the heart of this popular park for the development into an upscale golf course – ending the free public recreational use of an important portion of the park. The park provides this mostly African-American low income community with its main access to the lake, yet the proposed golf course would primarily benefit the adjacent wealthy neighborhood. The unconnected, vacant industrial lands offered as replacement land are far from equal in value and recreational utility to the pristine lakefront dunes being destroyed. Documents have come to light since the NPS’ approval of the conversion that reveal that six of the seven unconnected replacement parcels are severely contaminated with volatile organic chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals which are unremediated and uncontained at this time. This information, contained in a Nov. 2007 Due Care Plan, was not disclosed in the Environmental Assessment process or the NPS conversion approval process. Despite ongoing litigation in US District Court between park supporters and the NPS, bulldozers are currently in the park destroying trees and vegetation.

Battery Park, Ohio: Battery Park is located on the shores of Lake Erie in Sandusky Ohio, a working class town hit hard by the current economic downturn. Its residents enjoy the lake from this park, which received a $350,000 grant in 1980 for the construction of recreational facilities. The City Commissioners are supportive of a development proposal that would turn this 30 acre park and entertainment facility into the “Marina District”, a private development with 300 condominiums, a hotel, and commercial space. Development of the Marina District would deny the public of its recreational use and lake access at this Park. The Park Service has not yet received a conversion request, but it will soon. Due to the scarcity of available lakefront land in this area, it is likely that proposed replacement lands will be unsuitable as they were in Michigan.

Lake Texoma, Oklahoma: Over 1,500 acres of public recreational lands around Lake Texoma owned by the Oklahoma Tourism Department and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are under immediate threat of conversion into an upscale resort, conference center, and 3,000 unit housing development. Despite the fact that there has been no EIS on the impacts of the current development proposal, two parcels of state park land have already been sold to the private developer, Pointe Vista. These recreational lands have received 7 LWCF grants between 1967 and 1988 years totaling over $700,000. Although in 1999 the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation acknowledged that all of the State Park was within the LWCF Section 6(f)(3) boundary, the NPS has received no complete conversion request for this massive sell off of public recreational lands and no replacement lands have been proposed. It is incumbent upon the NPS to actively engage with the agency and demand that the conversion procedures outlined in 36 CFR 59.3 be followed.

We appreciate the opportunity to engage with the Subcommittee on this important issue. In closing, Defense of Place urges Congress to commit to increased funding for and oversight of the LWCF so that the American public can fully reap the benefits of this important and valuable conservation funding vehicle.

The Marshall County TIF review committee met in Kingston last week and heard Pointe Vista officials claim their development could bring in over $531 million in taxes over the next 25 years. But, under the terms of tax increment financing, this money doesn’t benefit the whole county – it stays within the development area to pay for their infrastructure costs. And, if they go bankrupt, it won’t bring in a dime.

The Friends of Lake Texoma State Park (FLTSP) oppose corporate welfare for Pointe Vista’s park conversion, because they haven’t received approvals by the National Park Service (NPS), or the Corps of Engineers Environmental Branch for taking away our public recreation land. (As this paper pointed out in February, NPS’ Bob Anderson said, “We do not have an approved conversion. No conversion request has been submitted to us.”)

We believe Pointe Vista’s efforts to gain public funding prove they don't have the money to build, or, they aren’t willing to risk their own money, in the event it fails. If they aren’t willing to risk it, why should Marshall County?

When asked by one reporter at TIF meeting if Pointe Vista's presentation materials would be made available to her, at first they refused. When she persisted, they agreed to provide them. However, there is a serious problem with what they provided. It's not all there. They omitted something. They left out an important map which incorrectly represented Pointe Vista project boundaries. That map included
Area A – The Chickasaw Pointe Golf Course, etc. (north of US 70), and Area B - Lake Texoma State Park (south of US 70). However, they also deceptively included Area C, the 1,000 acres of federal land which they do not own, and may never own.

We have been accused of standing in the way of progress, and delaying this project. The truth is, the state Tourism Department and Pointe Vista officials have mislead the public by failing to discuss the estimated 18 – 24 months required for the Corp of Engineers to complete their Environmental Impact Study (EIS) on Area C. It will also include a critical economic impact component which the TIF committee should review before doing anything else.

The Land Office Commissioners have the oversight authority and legal obligation to protect our state lands. They were in error when they sold the Park without assuring the state's compliance with the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. They can void the land sale contracts with Pointe Vista, and take back the entire park, based on the developer’s inexperience and deceptiveness.

Boyd Steele, President
Friends of Lake Texoma State Park

People who care about conserving open space are allowing themselves a bit of hope that the federal government finally will deliver on promises it made to the American people more than four decades ago.

In 1965, Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund to provide a steady source of money for the acquisition of threatened lands, the protection of significant landmarks and the expansion of outdoor recreational opportunities. The money would come from offshore oil and gas leases, giving the program an interesting symmetry: dollars raised from depleting one natural resource would be used to protect others.

The program has rescued millions of acres from development. But it has never been allowed to live up to its potential. Since 1980, spending has been authorized at $900 million annually — split evenly between federal and state projects — but actual appropriations have been much smaller. The last decade has been especially rough, despite former President George W. Bush’s campaign promise to “fully fund” the program. For the present fiscal year, Congress appropriated only $155 million, and none of it for the states.

Offshore royalties spin off billions every year. But Congress routinely diverts the money to the general treasury for deficit reduction, and the White House, no matter who occupies it, rarely pushes back.

President Obama’s budget offers a better deal: $420 million for the next fiscal year and the full funding of $900 million by 2014. These numbers are heartening. Federal dollars are needed to complete long-pending acquisitions across the country, from Hawaii to Yellowstone National Park to Virginia.

States are particularly hard pressed; Gov. David Paterson of New York plans to raid the state’s only land conservation program in order to reduce the deficit.

Promises, however, are only as good as the president wants them to be. We hope that President Obama remembers his.