Historic Preservation

State Parks: Lifeblood of Rural Communities

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[Source: Mary King, Sedona.biz] – Over a hundred people attended the meeting at the Sedona Library on September 30th to learn about the fate of the state parks, which the legislature has voted to close. The attendees were treated to a 13 minute film entitled The Future of Our State Parks. It showcased the beauty of our state and local parks including Red Rock, Dead Horse Ranch, Slide Rock and Jerome (which has been closed) State Parks and Fort Verde Historic Park.

After that, a panel that included Chip Davis, Park Supervisor for Yavapai County; legislator Sandy Bahr; Former State Senator Tom O’Halleran; and Sedona Mayor Rob Adams discussed the many aspects of the issue. Missing was Republican Tobin, who declined the invitation to attend.

Economic Issues Outshone Environmental Concerns:
The park closings have been cast by the legislature as an issue that appeals to only liberal environmentalists. It has been framed as a necessary cost-cutting measure to be attractive to conservatives. However, some say revenues lost to the state and rural communities will be far greater than the dollars saved by the demise of these recreational/historical areas:

» 8 million dollars would be saved by closing the parks.
» 260 million in tourist dollars could be lost by closing the parks that includes the money spent by park visitors on hotels, restaurants, gas, gift shops, etc.
» 3,347 jobs in rural communities would be gone.

Privatization:
Chip Davis summed up the idea of privatization when he said, “In 1957, Arizona was the last state to establish a state park system. Let’s not be the first state to dismantle our state park system.”  One speaker stated that he was sure that the closing of the state parks was a calculated move on the Governor’s part towards privatization.

Privatization is a complex issue, which could entail having the Arizona State Park System run by an out-of-state entity. It could mean expanding the use of the park by private vendors that would offer services that the park service would want to contract out like concession stands, thereby using non-state funds to operate the park system.

Initiatives to Save the Parks:
It was clear that the members had given a lot of thought to ways to create a permanent funding source for the future. Mayor Rob Adams stated that Sedona could not afford to fund their parks next year. He had consulted with an event planner to see what type of revenues could be had if an outdoor event like a wedding was held at Red Rock State Park (without infringing on the environment). The event planner estimated that one event could yield a hundred thousand dollars.

Another speaker said, compared to neighboring states like New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, we get very little revenues from our mineral resource-copper. The copper is owned by the citizens of Arizona. Likewise, these neighboring states put much more money into their state park system.

Verde Valley Has the Most State Parks:
This region has the most to lose with the closing of the parks. We have lost Jerome State Park. 80% of Arizonians are urban dwellers, and their cities pay for their local parks. Scottsdale pays over two hundred dollars per person per year to fund their local parks. Our state parks and the tourism it generates is our lifeblood, and as a region we need to let the legislature and the Governor to know our concerns, especially in an election year.

Group debates the future of state parks in Arizona

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[Source: John Hutchinson, Verde Independent] – A powerhouse panel of political players combined with a standing room-only crowd of State Parks supporters and conservationists gathered to help strategize the long-term sustainable operation of the State Parks system Thursday. Supported by a documentary film, “Postcards from the Parks,” which tells the story of Arizona’s State Parks long-running financial crisis, the panel took five aspects of the issue and fielded questions.

Birgit Lowenstein, who helped organize the Benefactors of the Red Rocks, said, “we have taken State Parks for granted.” There were also representatives from Cottonwood, Jerome, and Yavapai County, plus a flood of volunteers of the Parks system. “We have created a financial band-aid, but it is not sustainable. We must find a long-term solution,” urged Lowenstein.”

Chief among the messages of the documentary film: “A closed park doesn’t make any money.” The closure of the parks would save the government $8 million, but cost $260 million in economic decline to the surrounding communities from the parks’ closure. The documentary film quotes Director Renee Bahl, “We don’t have to chose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. We can have both.” [to read the full article click here].

Despite budget cuts, Tombstone refuses to let its state park die

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[Source:  Maria Polletta, Cronkite News Service, AZCapitolTimes.com] –It’s around 90 degrees outside and Mary Evans is buttoned up in a long-sleeved, high-collared white blouse that’s fastened at the neck with a black cameo. A black wool skirt, worn over bloomers, skims the top of her black boots. It looks uncomfortable, but Evans doesn’t seem to mind.

After six years of volunteer work at the Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park, Evans says she still gets caught up every time she browses the cases of wedding dresses, children’s shoes, dolls and toys. “Everything in the courthouse is special,” Evans said.

Evans couldn’t imagine losing the iconic building when budget cuts threatened funding for 19 of the state’s 28 parks, including the courthouse, earlier this year. Neither could leaders of this former silver-mining town, which draws tourists from all over the world with attractions like the OK Corral and Boothill Graveyard.

Under an arrangement with Arizona State Parks, the city of Tombstone officially took over the courthouse April 1. A professional service agreement allows the Tombstone Chamber of Commerce to oversee park operations for at least three years, with two more two-year terms possible. Since the courthouse changed hands, park hours have been extended from five to seven days a week, and volunteers have traded in state parks uniforms for period wear, said Patricia Moreno, the park’s manager. Staff and volunteers have also been working to create “living history,” such as trial re-enactments in the courthouse’s upstairs courtroom [to read full article click here].

Historic Arizona Icon in Danger

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[Source: Arizona Republic; by Kathleen Ingley, columnist]

The mission known as “The White Dove of the Desert” shimmers with the unworldly glow of a mirage in the dry flatlands south of Tucson.

Kathleen Ingley/The Arizona Republic

San Xavier del Bac, with its asymmetrical towers, elegant curves and exuberant decoration, is the best example of Spanish colonial architecture in the nation. It’s such an important window into the past that it was one of the original listings when the National Register of Historic Places was established in 1966.

But the White Dove is in danger.

The Legislature drained the Heritage Fund, wiping out a $150,000 grant that was supposed to help pay for repairing the east tower. The job was the final part of a two-decade restoration project. Without it, the tower and the entire structure are at risk.

Go to San Xavier, and you can’t miss the problem. The mission’s two towers look like “before” and “after” pictures for plastic surgery.

The west tower has brilliant-white stucco, new balustrades, reworked volutes and a reconstructed balcony made with mesquite.

The shorter east tower, which doesn’t have a cupola, is dingy, chipped and mottled with black mold stains. Parts of the finials and cornices are loose and could come crashing to the ground.

The Revolutionary War had just officially ended and southern Arizona was still part of New Spain when construction started on Mission San Xavier in 1783. The structure, made from fired-clay bricks in an unusual series of 11 domes, has the fluidity and openness of the Spanish baroque style.

Thanks to a series of factors, including a 50-year abandonment, isolation and scarce resources for making major changes, the mission has remained relatively unaltered since it was built. Architect Bob Vint, who has worked on the restoration, calls it “a time capsule.”

Virtually all the art inside, which has been cleaned by an international team of conservators, dates from the late 1700s. The sculptured-plaster altar is covered in gold and silver leaf.

The mission, which sits on the San Xavier Tohono O’odham Reservation, still functions as a parish church. But the building itself is a cultural monument and a major tourist attraction, drawing about 200,000 visitors a year from around the world.

In an ironic twist, most of today’s problems come from past efforts at restoration. The exterior was coated with concrete in a misguided attempt to protect the mission. But the concrete ended up trapping moisture, melting away the centuries-old bricks.

The current restoration project strips off the concrete and goes back to the original way the mission was built. The bricks for it are produced in Mexico using a traditional process – including a mule-powered mill to sift sand out of the clay – to match the mission’s bricks in density, porosity and salt content. The mortar is mixed with local sand and lime, plus a natural glue made from cactus pads.

The Patronato San Xavier, a non-profit that promotes the mission’s conservation, has managed to keep the restoration rolling with a combination of fundraising and grants.

The west tower was finished in 2009, and the scaffolding was about to go up on the east tower when word came that the Heritage Fund grant was in jeopardy.

We are not talking enormous sums of money. The Heritage Fund has put in $230,000 over the course of 15 years.

The current grant was just $150,000. But it would have triggered an equal amount of matching money and provided a solid base for starting the east tower project. The total cost is estimated at $1.5 million.

Voters established the Heritage Fund in 1990, dedicating money from the state Lottery to several grants programs for recreation and historic preservation. But the Legislature has been raiding that part of the Heritage Fund for the past three fiscal years, taking a total of $26.3 million.

The San Xavier grant was canceled. And there’s no prospect of getting it back. Lawmakers quietly abolished the cultural and recreational portion of the Heritage Fund.

Interestingly, the part of the Heritage Fund that is administered by the Arizona Game and Fish Department has taken hits in the past but didn’t fall victim to this year’s budget crisis. Maybe advocates of culture and history would be more persuasive if they carried rifles and fishing rods.

San Xavier’s restoration should have been finished in time for Arizona’s centennial in 2012.

That’s impossible now. But it would be a disgrace not to have the work well under way on the state’s 100th birthday.

We’re in a real race against time.

“That east tower is deteriorating,” says Vern Lamplot, executive director of the Patronato. “The longer it sits, the more damage is done to it, which ultimately threatens the whole thing.”

These are tough times for fundraising. But the remaining cost of restoring this irreplaceable piece of Arizona’s history and culture is remarkably small. It’s inconceivable that Arizonans won’t raise it.

Reach Ingley at kathleen.ingley@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8171.

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