Heritage Fund

2 more Arizona state parks closed; 8 in jeopardy

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Tonto Natural Bridge State Park: This geological formation near Payson attracted 87,930 visitors in 2008. It is one of two additional state parks that will close immediately to allow for repairs necessary for visitors' safety, officials said.
Tonto Natural Bridge State Park (Photo: David Wallace, Arizona Republic)

[Source: Casey Newton, Arizona Republic] — Two state parks will close indefinitely and eight more will remain on the chopping block as part of budget cuts approved Friday by the Arizona State Parks Board.  Tonto Natural Bridge State Park and Jerome State Historic Park will close immediately to allow for repairs necessary for visitors’ safety, officials said.  McFarland State Park closed earlier this month for the same reason. Combined with layoffs, the suspension of grants for capital projects and other measures, the park closures will help the parks board pay a $27 million bill to the state due next Saturday.  That figure represents the funds taken by the Legislature last month as part of a $1.6 billion budget fix for fiscal 2009.

Even after the Friday cuts, which were approved on a 3-1 vote, the parks board still must find an additional $3 million in savings by June 30.  That leaves the fate of eight more state parks up in the air: Homolovi Ruins, Oracle, Yuma Quartermaster Depot, Tubac Presidio, Fort Verde, Lyman Lake, Riordan Mansion, and Red Rock.  Whether those parks remain open depends largely on whether the Legislature makes further cuts to state parks as part of the fiscal 2010 budget.  Arizona faces an estimated $3 billion budget shortfall.

Board members were pessimistic about the prospect of keeping all or even most of the eight parks open.  “Don’t leave here today thinking we’re not going to close more parks,” board member Bill Scalzo said after more than five hours of meetings. “We probably will.”  [Note: To read the full article, click here.  Additional news coverage at Arizona Daily Sun, Cronkite News Service, KNXV Phoenix, KSWT Yuma, KTAR Radio Phoenix, Payson Roundup, Sierra Vista Herald, Tucson Citizen.]

Viewpoint: Arizona state leaders apparently don’t value parks, historic sites

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[Source: William C. Thornton, Special to the Arizona Daily Star] — My wife and I recently had vastly different experiences at two state-operated parks.  The first was Judge Roy Bean State Park situated miles from nowhere in the tiny west Texas town of Langtry.  It was one of the nicest little museums we’ve ever seen and tells the story of the self-appointed “Law West of the Pecos” in a series of interactive dioramas that come alive before your eyes.

The original wood structure where Bean dispensed his own brand of justice on the Texas frontier sits behind the well-kept museum and visitor center.  When court was not in session, it was the center of community life, i.e. saloon, poker room, and pool hall.  A small botanical garden features native plants and picnic tables under shade trees.  Admission charge?  Zero.  I asked volunteers at the information desk if we couldn’t at least put a few bucks in a donation box.  They explained that the park is fully funded by the state of Texas and does not take donations.

A day-and-night opposite experience awaited us at McFarland State Park up the road in Florence.  The park honors Ernest McFarland, whose service as governor, U.S. senator, and Supreme Court justice makes him the only American to ever serve in all three branches of government.  He is perhaps best remembered as one of the authors of the G.I. Bill, which opened college doors to millions of veterans coming home from the battlefields of World War II.  The park’s centerpiece, Arizona’s first courthouse, dates from 1878 and combines traditional southwest adobe walls with an Anglo American wood-shingled pitched roof and wooden porch.

The years have taken their inevitable toll. Adobe walls are crumbling, rock foundations need shoring and wood porches need repair.  The building was closed and renovation began in October 2008.  We visited the museum and vowed to return when repairs to the courthouse are complete.  [Note: To read the full op-ed piece, click here.]

99 groups sign up to protect Arizona’s Heritage Fund! Who will be 100?

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One group shy of 100 has signed on to help protect the Arizona Heritage Fund.  Who will be number 100?

If you or your organization would like to sign our letter (and be that #100), send us an e-mail and include your name, mailing address, e-mail, and state legislative district.  To locate your district, click here.  Thank you for your interest and support in preserving and protecting Arizona’s cultural, natural, and historic resources.

San Xavier could be hurt by decision that saves Arizona state parks

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Budget sweeps caused group restoring San Xavier Mission to lose a grant for east tower restoration. (Photo: Jonathan J. Cooper)

[Source: Jonathan J. Cooper, Cronkite News Service] — Late last year, crews removed scaffolding that covered the west tower of San Xavier Mission.  Preservation experts had spent years removing a concrete coating, replacing disintegrating brick and restoring the original lime mortar cover.  

Restoration work was supposed to move this year to the mission’s east tower, where the structure is disintegrating from the inside. But the scaffolding could stay on the ground and the tower could continue to slowly crumble now after lawmakers closing the state’s budget deficit swept millions from a fund that had committed $150,000 in lottery proceeds to the work here.  “The whole thing is frustrating because you want to believe the state lives up to its word,” said Vernon Lamplot, executive director of Patronato San Xavier, a nonprofit organization created to restore the 212-year-old mission south of Tucson.

An Arizona icon dubbed “The White Dove of the Desert,” San Xavier stands a vision of contrasts.  One tower is gleaming white, while the other has yellowing paint and mold.  The exterior is cracked, with stucco falling from the brick walls.  The restoration at San Xavier is one of about 120 projects, some already under way, that stand to lose grants from the Heritage Fund, which designates up to $20 million of state lottery revenue annually for parks, trails, historic preservation, and wildlife conservation.  Voters created the fund in 1990.

There is some hope for the grants.  A bill by Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Chandler, was amended to reallocate money to help prevent some state parks from closing and, among other things, replace the $4.9 million swept from the Heritage Fund.  A House committee endorsed the bill, but it would require a three-quarters vote from both chambers to pass.  The plan may prove unpopular because it would take the money from the Growing Smarter Fund voters created in 1998 to conserve land.

The dozens of Heritage Fund grants around Arizona are especially important now to stimulate the economy and encourage tourism, said Doris Pulsifer, grants director for Arizona State Parks, which administers much of the money.  “To develop these projects provides jobs because someone has to go out there and build them,” she said.  “And money is spent on the equipment and the materials.”

Dennis Hoffman, an economics professor at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, said the Heritage Fund grants probably do create some jobs and have a small economic benefit.  But he said it’s hard to argue that one state program is more beneficial than another as they all fight for a dwindling number of dollars.  “You’ve got a million ducks fighting over two croutons,” Hoffman said.  “We need more croutons.  There’s just not enough money going around to fund everything that most Arizonans would agree needs to be funded.”

Beth Woodin, president of the Arizona Heritage Alliance, an organization that lobbies the Legislature to continue supporting the Heritage Fund, said the sweep shows a lack of commitment to historic preservation, parks, and wildlife.  “It would seem that sane and reasonable and educated people would care about the Heritage Fund,” she said.  [Note: To read the full article, click here.]