This California Department of Parks and Recreation financial scandal just continues to prove that until robots rule the world, things will continue to suck because people are behind things.
The Sacramento Bee reported July 20 that state parks has been sitting on $54 million in “hidden assets” for at least 12 years…The money was held in two special funds even as the agency undertook painful service reductions and park closures to achieve $22 million in budget cuts…Some of the surplus money could have been used to avoid those cuts, but it was never reported to the Department of Finance, as required by long-standing state fiscal policy.
All the while, of course, we are asked to “Save Our State Parks” you know, because of the budget.
In January 2011, Governor Jerry Brown unveiled his proposed budget, which included a reduction of General Fund support for state parks by $11 million for Fiscal Year 2011-12 and a total reduction of $22 million by the beginning of Fiscal Year 2012-2013. The California Legislature passed this $22 million General Fund reduction, imposing these permanent park closures.
So, what does one do? Throw the parks out with the bath water? Can I boycott people?
The Sac Rag 
It looks like the problem is even worse than just parks
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Of course we were told the recycling program was being gutted and that we wouldn’t be able to recycle our bottles and cans for much longer. You know, because no one thought people would actually return their recyclables for cash when this
tax,fee, program was concocted.LikeLike
The off-road community has been accusing the State Parks & Rec department of diverting monies intended for OHV parks for years.
One angle from the LA Times is that the OHV money was hidden because the Parks & Rec dept is anti-OHV, and/or because Parks & Recs were trying to limit the legislatures regular practice of “borrowing” from the fund.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/27/local/la-me-state-parks-20120727
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More information about the “special fund” scandal.
Yeah, good luck with that, Jerry. We don’t have a problem making money in this state, we have a problem with people sucking and not caring about ethics, morals, and general look out for one another behavior.
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So what will be the catchy lawn-sign slogan that links the parks scandal to a “No” vote on the tax increase?
Mine: “No more checks for CA Parks & Wrecks”
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Because we couldn’t be more discouraged by the future of people…
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A step in the right direction.
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