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Among the many bills approved by the legislature and sent to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk for approval are two state parks bills. They have nothing to do with the possible closures and in fact, they were introduced long before any one would have thought that hundreds would be threatened during the budget process.
"In the midst of the devastating proposal to close state parks, the Governor has an opportunity to enact strong policies to protect our park lands from damaging development and infrastructure projects," explains the California Parks Foundation, a sponsor of the bills. "Together, Senate Bill 679 (Wolk) and Assembly Bill 372 (Kehoe) establish a new policy in state law - that there shall be no net loss of state park lands in California."
For example, if a utility company needs to install a substation on 5 acres of land in Topanga State Park, 5 acres of equivalent land in the same area must be given found and given to the state parks system. If that cannot be done, a combination of fewer acres and money for improvements would be allowed.
As of this morning, Schwarzenegger has not approved or vetoed the two bills. However, he took a renewed interest in saving state parks this week.
