$54 Million Cash Stash for CA State Parks & Jerry Brown while NY & Andrew Cuomo Add Record 69,000 Acres

Posted: August 7th, 2012

“Gov. Andrew Cuomo has joined the honor role of governors and conservation groups that have stepped forward at critical moments to protect large parts of the Adirondacks from commercial development. On Sunday, Mr. Cuomo announced that the State of New York had bought 69,000 acres of timberland . . .  including stretches of the upper Hudson River watershed. The purchase is the largest single addition in more than a century to the state’s ‘forever wild’ forest preserve and will be open to hunting, fishing and recreational use but not to homebuilding and logging,” according to an Editorial in the New York Times.

Meanwhile Governor Jerry Brown and the California State Parks Department sit on $54 million of unspent park funds while threatening to close one quarter of the state park system that generates over $4 billion in economic benefits per year, according to a report by Sacramento State University that State Parks refuses to release. Park supporters have resorted to passing the hat around to keep parks open. While the former state parks director and her deputy lost their jobs in the claimed surplus scandal, the buck stops with Jerry Brown, who has done nothing since being elected to ensure new state parks leadership meets the needs of the people.