Brown's Parks Vetoes Irk Lawmakers, But Most Parks to Stay Open
It now appears nearly all of the 70 California state parks that had been designated for closure will remain open. But that doesn’t mean state lawmakers are happy with Governor Jerry Brown’s newly-announced line-item vetoes to parks spending.
The governor blue-penciled $31 million dollars from state parks that lawmakers of both parties had pushed for.
Democratic State Senator Noreen Evans said the money would have gone toward maintenance and infrastructure repairs that have been largely ignored due to budget cuts.
“I think they want to turn parks over to private operators – whether that’s non-profit or for-profit operators – and they don’t want to do anything that would get in the way of doing that,” commented Evans.
Brown did leave money in the budget to help transfer as many parks on the closure list as possible to new operators. His administration said it now believes all but five parks either have agreements to remain open – or are moving in that direction.
