State Parks

Sedona city staff finds home for previously spent Arizona Heritage Fund grant money

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[Source: Carl Jackson, Sedona.biz] – At last night’s City Council meeting, newly appointed City Manager Timothy Ernster explained to the council staff’s plan to redeploy a $586,000 Heritage Fund grant given to the City by the Arizona State Parks in 1995-96 to invest in the now defunct Sedona Cultural Park.  The center piece of the park was a 5,000 seat amphitheater named after St. Louis Rams owner and accomplished soprano, Georgia Frontiere, who helped launch it in May, 2000 with a $1 million donation.  A requirement of the grant was that the site be available to the general public for outdoor recreation use for a period of 25 years, and be subject to periodic on-site inspections.

After the park filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and the grant money was lost, the City faced a quandary: return the grant to the Arizona State Parks or find another qualifying public use.  In 2004, the City of Sedona commissioned a feasibility study for a Sedona Performing Arts and Conference Center that ranked the Sedona Cultural Park first in the evaluation, but the project never moved forward.

Arizona state parks at risk for closure

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[Source: KVOA.com] — On Monday the state parks board meets.  The chairman says it’s the most important meeting in its 50 year history.  The board will determine the operating budget, strategic plan for the next 3 years, and most importantly whether the parks can remain open.  Arizona has 30 state parks.  The state’s parks board oversees the state historic preservation office.  And gives out grants to communities for all types of outdoor recreation.

So they need $27 million to operate the agency and it looks like the budget will be cut in half.  If parks are forced to close some say the impact will be felt throughout the community.  [Note: To read the full story, click here]

Arizona lawmakers consider selling Capitol buildings, Kartchner Caverns State Park

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[Source: Examiner.com] — Desperate for cash, Arizona state lawmakers are considering selling the House and Senate buildings, then leasing them back over several years before assuming ownership again.  Dozens of other state buildings may also be sold off and leased back as the state grapples with a huge budget deficit.  Other “candidate properties” range from state prisons and the mental hospital to run-of-the-mill state office buildings and Kartchner Caverns State Park, the crown jewel of the system.

Under the complex financial arrangement, state government services would continue without interruption while the state picks up a cash infusion estimated by Capitol number-crunchers at $735 million.  [Note: To read the full story, click here]

Viewpoint: Arizona legislature on verge of shutting park system

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[Source: Bill Meek, President, Arizona State Parks Foundation, Camp Verde Bugle] — Without the Legislature’s help in securing immediate additional revenues for Arizona State Parks, the current FY10 budget will force closure of virtually all state parks, shutting a system that serves more than two million visitors annually, while depriving local communities of some $266 million a year in parks-related income.  During a public workshop last week, State Parks Director Renee Bahl explained that legislative sweeps of parks funds, including $3 million in entry fee income, have left State Parks with only $8.4 million in operating revenues for the fiscal year.  This compares to $30 million needed for bare bones operations, excluding any capital funds for repair of badly deteriorating historic buildings, unsafe sewer park systems and eroding lakefront facilities.  Such scant operational money is not enough to even close, fence and guard Arizona’s treasured array of 30 parks, recreation areas and historic sites, Bahl noted.

To avoid this disaster, somewhere between $18 million and $22 million must be restored to State Parks — an amount accounting for about 1/10th percent of the state’s overall budget and less than a half percent of its current $4 billion deficit.  Not to provide such modest funding will effectively wipe out more than 50 years of taxpayer investment in buying, building and opening such heavily-visited places as Kartchner Caverns; Havasu and Alamo lakes and on the state’s west side; Slide Rock, Red Rock and Dead Horse Ranch state parks in Northern Arizona; and Catalina, Oracle and Patagonia Lake state parks in southeast Arizona to name a few. [Note: To read the full story, click here]