OUR PARKS: RACK AND RUIN, OR SOLD OFF??

Worried has a new rant.

OUR STATE AND NATIONAL PARKS

Parks are deteriorating? Not enough money to maintain them? Sell off some parkland to developers in order to finance park maintenance? Is the key word here developers or parks maintenance? Who do they think they are kidding? Are we that gullible? Why is there insufficient money to maintain our parks? Are developers' profits more important than citizens' prime recreation areas and our progeny's heritage?

Here in Texas Governor Rick Perry took up the torch George W. Bush passed on when he left for the Presidency to more effective destruction than he was able to accomplish while governor.
Parks are just one of a million pieces in the ruination and downfall of our country.

Houston Chronicle; 08/01/06, page B8: "The population of Texas is growing rapidly, but the budget for...the state park system is zero. The parks department can't even maintain what it has....Once a jewel in the state's crown, the park system is going to rack and ruin.

Elections are coming up, the parks are one hot button issue, candidates for governor smell blood in the water, and Perry is jumping around like a flea on a hot griddle trying to please all constituents as well as BushCo and Corporate Interests.
On the one hand he says the parks need and deserve more money, but he also says , "the parks department should be prepared to cut its budget by 10 percent..." This, after cutting the budget in the past so that parks cannot be maintained properly, closing some of our parks and laying off park workers, and failing to replace 10 year old park vehicles.

But never fear, our fearless Governor has a solution. Texans, do we hear cheers of relief? Perry states, "...it might be good policy to sell some irreplaceable parkland in order to operate or repair other parkland." Don't forget those Corporations/developers who have for years been salivating to get their hands on those lands. Who needs pristine, natural parkland when there is tremendous profits to be made building subdivisions, malls, etc.. - after they bulldoze down the trees and clear the vegetation, straighten and concrete the banks of creeks, and drive away all that pesky wildlife. Leaving Texans not only with diminished parkland but "...a tragic legacy: a system consisting of closed or deteriorating state parks." Anyone who believes anything more than a token amount garnered by parkland sale will be used for the parks is naive. Other programs implemented for worthy causes have ended up with much of the money diverted elsewhere.

You're not from Texas so it doesn't concern you? Perhaps it would behoove you to check out your state parks programs just to be sure.

However, this concerns all Americans: same page as above, from the Los Angeles Times:

Beware Land Sale Scheme
Proposed sale of federal lands, holdings of the Bureau of Land Management. "...new proposals to auction BLM property comes with a troubling twist: the money, which could easily run into the billions, wouldn't go to the Treasury to pay down the deficit or otherwise benefit U.S. taxpayers. Instead, a hefty portion would be directed to the communities [abutting the lands] ...The rest would be used for federal programs, but only near where the land was sold."

"Using federal funds as a piggybank for local projects is a waste of national resources and as a result might earmark hundreds of millions in federal funds for what won't be the most worthy or urgent public projects. Worse, it gives local communities a strong incentive to pressure the federal government to sell land that might otherwise be preserved for good reason..."

I have read proposals to sell off land in national parks, also. One article concerned a proposal to sell to a logging industry to harvest the trees on the land. I have not read whether that proposal was implemented or not.

Re: the sale of BLM lands. That is federal land and as such belongs to all the citizens of the U.S., not just the neighboring communities. If a "hefty portion" was to be used for community improvement, think what a barrel of pork it would be for the politicians to present as vote getters to their constituents; the profits to be made by the contractors to do all the building and improving in the communities. And let's not forget the Corporations who purchase the land in the first place. Talk about multiple billions of dollars in profits to be made developing those lands. After it was rendered suitable for construction of subdivisions, malls, businesses, ofcourse.... perhaps some of their cronies would like the logging contract to get rid of all those trees. The money to be made boggles the mind.

But ofcourse, our government and Corporate America is all in favor of profits. Who needs parks or federal lands when there is money to be made?? To heck with maintaining pristine wildernesses. To heck with maintaining natural parks for the citizens. To heck with maintaining a legacy for future generations. Riches are to be made NOW!