http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20010429&slug=judd29Sunday, April 29, 2001
State parks become land of the feeOne thing is clear about recreating in 21st Century America: You're going to need a bigger windshield.
Not to block bugs. Just to placate the police.
Most of you who even occasionally walk across, climb up, ski down or snooze upon your public lands probably have an impressive lower-windshield sticker lineup: One for the Forest Service, one for State Sno-Parks, one or more for whomever manages your other favorite outdoor haunts. (Which incidentally leads us to wonder: Isn't it time for a strategic window-decal alliance between the U.S. Forest Service and Jiffy Lube?)
Clear some space, folks, for the new one: Your Washington State Parks day-use parking pass, available soon at a local retailer.
The smoke has cleared in Olympia, and the deed has been done: Starting Jan. 1, it will cost you $5 a day, or $30 a year, to suck a Slurpee at Saltwater State Park, fly a kite at Fort Flagler, or pluck a clam at Penrose Point.
This should come as something less than a surprise. We're already well down the road to becoming the pay-as-you go state.
It takes neither a genius nor a blue-ribbon panel to look at Washington government and conclude that the costs of serving critical needs of a burgeoning population - schools, roads, ferries, bridges, social services, corporate welfare for billionaire sports-franchise owners, etc. - far outstrip available money to pay for them, particularly given recent tax-and-spend limits imposed by voters.
State Parks are an instructive, but by no means unique, example of how this all trickles down to campfire-pit level - and burns a hole in the bottom of your shoe.
Like many state agencies, State Parks was hit in the '90s by the double whammy of skyrocketing use and declining revenues from the state general fund. The choice: Cut service, or charge more for it.
Unfortunately - and perhaps contrary to popular belief - there wasn't a lot of fat left to trim from state parks, where knife struck bone years ago. Further sawing would have created nothing short of severed limbs.
Several years ago, this prompted citizen members of the State Parks and Recreation Commission to issue a dire warning: Give the parks the money they need to survive, or we'll be forced to close some. A lot of them, in fact.
That created a fair amount of outrage - much of it emanating from this column, which wondered out loud: How can a state pretend to offer a high quality of life, but turn its back on the very natural heritage that makes it unique? And doesn't anyone even give a rip?
Some people did. Hundreds responded, and a dozen or more were angry enough to actually do something. They got busy, volunteered their time, and formed the first state parks citizens' lobby group - an effort nothing short of heroic, which continues in Olympia today.
But in an era of rising costs and failing revenues, the best they've been able to do is stave off further degradation - and keep those parks on the closure list open.
That's a major accomplishment. But the truth is that not enough of the rest of us have risen to back them up at crunch time. Further, and even more sobering: No amount of lobby power is likely to channel money toward "expendable" services such as beaches, forests and campgrounds as long the state's regressive, fundamentally-flawed revenue structure fails to pay for even basic human services.
The result - for better or worse, largely of our own making - stares us in the face today: A daily parking-fee system for nearly 100 state parks (see
www.parks.wa.gov/public.asp for a full roster) - a list that likely includes your favorite.
Tough to argue with Parks Commissioners' reasoning: They had no choice, they said, short of dragging that parks-closure hit list back out of the drawer.
What does it all mean?
It means roughly $4 million a year in new revenue will help prop up State Parks' $90 million annual budget - likely keeping all parks open with at least basic services.
It means if you fail to pay the kitty, you'll get a $45 parking ticket.
It means Washington's most magnificent natural places, in spite of the inarguable role they play in what we're all about, will continue to rate a near-zero on our public priority list - receiving less than one-fourth of one percent of the total state budget.
It means state legislator's list of "basic public services" no longer includes free, open access to the few remaining islands of nature in an increasingly asphalt world.
And it means we, through our longstanding and dutiful ignorance, acquiescence and silence, agree with them.
Pay-as-you-go. It's become as much a part of the Northwest persona as picnics at Potlatch. Not such a bad concept, perhaps - at least it accurately describes how we've evolved.
Those who can pay, after all, still get to go. And to hell with the rest of ya.
