California state parks learned their fate yesterday when the Governator finally got around to signing the state budget. He didn’t wield quite the large knife he’d (creepily) threatened to, cutting only $14.2 million from the parks’ budget—drastically less than the $143 million he’d earlier proposed.
Here’s what Elizabeth Goldstein of the California State Parks Foundations says Californians can look forward to in their newly shuttered parks, as told to the Thin Green Line:
Access to the parks would be illegal, though not impossible in most cases, so the likely result, she said, would be lots of litter, some marijuana grow operations, increased risk of wildfires and maybe even some meth labs.
While the meth heads are setting up shop in state parks, California’s national forests will be sitting pretty—at least comparatively speaking. They’re raking in $76.7 million in stimulus funding from the Forest Service for much needed trail and building maintenance, the most any state received.
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