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Politics

More Bad Park News – Only 4.6% of Parks Self-Funding

July 30, 2009

More bad news for the California State Park system today. In an earlier post, I mentioned Parks Director Ruth Coleman’s comment saying that those parks who can sustain their own operations will most likely be safe when the time comes to start locking up entrance gates.
But a story in today’s LA Times [...]

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CA Budget Showdown ‘09

June 30, 2009

Yup. The annual political teeth-pulling exercise known as the California Budget Approval Process continues to drag out with few concrete milestones reached. It does look, however, like our State Park System may not be the sacrificial lamb it once looked like.
Apparently, 69 of the threatened state parks were given to the state or [...]

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L.A.’s Unbuilt 22-Mile Trail

May 15, 2009

Apparently the Backbone Trail isn’t the only perennially unfinished long-distance trail in Los Angeles.
Zach at LAist dug up some info on an almost 22-mile long hiking and equestrian path called the Core Trail from the Hollywood Bowl to Topanga Canyon Blvd., following a 100-foot wide city-owned right-of-way on Mullholland Drive. The plan was originally [...]

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Paria Canyon Showdown

May 13, 2009

A small land-access drama is playing out in Utah right now, in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A (very) long story short — the Paria Canyon area within the Monument had a town in the late 1800s, which had a half-dirt road, half-path through a canyon riverbed leading up to it. Off-Road Vehicle [...]

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Bad Ads – A Political Sidestep

November 3, 2008

It came to my attention this morning that Modern Hiker was getting some Google Adsense advertisements for California’s Yes on 8 campaign — the ballot initiative that aims to eliminate the currently-existing right for same-sex couples to marry in the Golden State.
I sincerely apologize if anyone came to my web site looking for hikes and [...]

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Griffith Park Title Change

October 27, 2008

This Thursday, October 30th, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission will be holding a meeting to determine whether or not to recommend Griffith Park as a Historic-Cultural Monument.
The title change wouldn’t just give the 4200+ acre park a fancier title on its business cards, either — it would protect both the open space and existing [...]

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Outdoorsy Debates

September 11, 2008

Backpacker caught the story of what may be the most rugged political event of history:
Utah Washington County Commissioner hopeful Lin Alder will be hiking and biking along the route to a proposed 170-mile water pipeline from perpetually-shrinking Lake Powell. He’s running against the pipeline and the increased development and costs to the state, and [...]

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Parks Safe For Now

May 14, 2008

In a highly expected and not-at-all surprising announcement this week, Governor Schwarzenegger said he would NOT close 48 State Parks, shortfund schools, or release thousands of inmates from prison to balance the state’s budget.
Instead, he’s planning on borrowing money from investors that he hopes to pay back with future revenues from California’s lottery, which sounds [...]

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Roadlessland.org

March 4, 2008

Reader Nelson commented on some of the recent entries about the Forest Service’s attempt to overturn the 2001 Roadless Rule. He provided a link to his web site, devoted to educating the public about the Roadless Rule — roadlessland.org.
It’s an easy and visceral way to get an idea of just how much land could [...]

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Toll Road Defeated

February 7, 2008

Yesterday, a massive group of surfers, campers and environmentalists flooded a public hearing on a proposed toll road through San Onofre State Park.
The 3500+ person crowd rallied against the 6-lane toll road, which would have taken 320 acres of the park’s land, including sections of a protected marine estuary. In that rare instance of [...]

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