"Texas parks are in dire shape, close to disaster"

Following the Texas Progress Council's press conference yesterday calling attention to the problem, the Chronic reports that Rick Perry has suddenly realized he's got a big mess on his hands. Let's turn the newspaper's attention away from the Republican governor's spin, though, and put the focus back where it belongs, on the state of our state parks:

"Texas state parks are in dire shape, close to disaster," Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, said.

Some of the state's 114 parks "are embarrassing," he said. Declining budgets from $253 million in 2004 to $197 million this fiscal year have resulted in staff cuts, reduced operating hours, deferred maintenance, old equipment and a vehicle fleet averaging 10 years old. To raise money, Parks and Wildlife officials nearly sold 46,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park last year until public outrage forced them to back down.

This is the real story.

Governor Adios MoFo -- together with enablers like Tom Craddick and Jerry Patterson and Greg Abbott, and the influence of bagmen like Tom DeLay, James Leininger, and "Swift Boat" Bob Perry -- has created a legislative environment where there will be no money for anything. Not for schools, not for health care, not even for state parks.

Oh wait, there will be money for toll roads.

Do Texans really want to continue being the laboratory for Grover Norquist's experiment of drowning government in the bathtub?

Why is Rick Perry selling off God's Country?

Glenn Smith of the Texas Progress Council asked this question today at a press conference in Austin.

So why is the Governor of Texas -- a man called MoFo -- selling off public lands while at the same time starving our state parks of the most basic maintenance necessary to keep them going?

From the presser:

Recently, Texas Parks & Wildlife warned that budget cutbacks ordered by Perry might require the sale or closure of 18 state parks. Also, Parks & Wildlife transferred 12,000 acres of the Black Gap Wildlife Area in Big Bend to the General Land Office so it can be sold.

This land is some of the most beautiful and important in our state. It includes Rio Grande River canyons considered among the wildest in America. A portion of the Rio Grande that runs through Black Gap has been designated a Wild and Scenic river by the federal government.

And Rick Perry’s going to sell it.

Perry’s spokesman was recently quoted saying the Parks system should consider selling even more land. Belt tightening, they call it. It’s more like strangling the future of Texas.

Watch the video:




And if this bothers you, then send the Governor and the Land Commissioner a message now, and again in November by voting for their two opponents.