BREAKING! If we want state parks, we have to fund them!

SHOCKER! (4.00 / 2)

from the link above:

direct state funding is needed for true revitalization, according to a draft plan released Monday.

I'm our sure our regressive revenue system will get right on that.

Thanks, Judd! Should we name the parks after you, too?

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by: Dean Barker @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 18:32:57 PM CST

This is pretty much how it is in much of the rest of the world (0.00 / 0)

where even in poor countries, to use national parks you pay more than you would for parking at any NH state park and where the public is uniformly poorer. People still go. Actually, it leads to better infrastructure around the park so probably more people go than would otherwise.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 18:35:38 PM CST

Got a link? (0.00 / 0)

I call bullshit on about four counts:

1. US state and national parks get PLENTY of traffic
2. "It leads to better infrastructure" than in the non-NH US. Baloney.
3. "Much of the rest of the world:" I don't recall paying at the Champs Elysee, or the Louvre, or the Tour - well, I wimped out and bought an elevator ticket there.
4. Are the parks protecting as much of the nation's heritage in those poor countries?

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by: elwood @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 18:50:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I just got a Brazilian visa (4.00 / 3)

and was thinking about going to Foz do Iguassu: $14 per person to enter.

I went to a less touristy park in Ecuador, a volcanic crater lake. It was $7 per person. The roads were a lot better than the Kanc or 101 between Nashua and Keene, and in much more difficult, windy, mountainous conditions.

Compare PPP in the US to Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina (the waterfalls are the border between the last three countries).

Also, to go into some famous churches in South America and Europe, you have to pay fees. I have a ticket stub on a picture frame at home from when I went to see the tomb of Marshall Sucre, who led part of the independence movement in the Americas from the monarchy. As I recall, I also paid to go to the municipal museum there.

Road tolls are also significantly higher in Bolivia and Paraguay than New Hampshire, and these are considered among the poorest countries in the hemisphere.

I mean, I bristle a little bit at the notion of paying $4 to climb Mt Monadnock, but if anything, that's way undervalued. And user fees are probably a fairer and better way to fund parks than keeping them at a low priority when the legislature gets to doling out from the general fund.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 19:08:51 PM CST

[ Parent ]

We're talking past each other - (0.00 / 0)

I did NOT say that there should never be any user fees.

I said that pretending to run a public park system without public funding does not work.

If you have relevant data to gainsay that, bring it.

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by: elwood @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 19:11:10 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What did the two penultimate paragraphs says? (0.00 / 0)

"If we want to have state parks...We will have to PAY for it."

"This is a revolutionary idea here. Judd Gregg...eliminated General Fund support of the parks."

Constitutionally, the legislature has the ability to allocate funding as it sees fit. Judd Gregg's policy decision doesn't matter. User fees are low, and without them, right now their would be no dedicated parks revenue nor the priority to allocate money from the general fund. The parks would be falling apart like Daniel Webster's house.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 19:18:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

They ARE falling apart. (4.00 / 1)

Read the report. The authors are asking for money to fix equipment that fails safety inspections.

How much do you know about this? I assumed the readers here already knew that, six months ago, the state proposed selling off parks because we can't pay for them.

WITH the user fees that Gregg and you prefer.

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by: elwood @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 19:21:49 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Apparently not very much (0.00 / 0)

despite fairly frequently visiting the state parks. Did it all go to hell this summer?

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 20:07:27 PM CST

[ Parent ]

A tale of two state parks (4.00 / 1)

My family went to Greenfield State Park and it was flooded, filthy and very unpleasant. We went to Forest Lake State Park in Dalton and the parking lot was closed and looked like a moonscape. Nobody even collected a fee. People brought their dogs, letting them run loose and sh&t and pee all over the place, including in the water. There was garbage all over. No life guards, changing rooms or toilets, just a lone port-o-potty. This not the kind of recreation that will bring out of state tourists and their dollars to New Hampshire, that's for sure.

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by: Jennifer Daler @ Tue Nov 24, 2009 at 05:29:52 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Far better infrastructure around the park (0.00 / 0)

I was just in New York City last weekend, and you should see some of the depressed real estate bordering Central Park.

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by: JimC @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 18:56:27 PM CST

[ Parent ]

there IS a reason (4.00 / 1)

why no other state does it this way. NH may figure it out yet.  

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by: susanthe @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 18:42:04 PM CST

It's the NH Advantage! n/t (4.00 / 1)

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by: Dean Barker @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 19:32:05 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The only objection I have to collecting entrance fees at (0.00 / 0)

every venue is that it's inefficient and prone to petty thievery by staff.

On the other hand, that stewardship of the land means work is an idea that many "conserverationists" eschew.  They'd really prefer for nature to take care of itself, forgetting that man has so upset the balance that the browsers that keep the undergrowth in check, for example, are no longer adequate to do the job.  And fire is not something we want to rely on in close proximity to human habitations.

Finally, our economists need to rethink they traditional characterization of goods as high value and labor as low.  Goods are labor saving, or can be, but in the long run they all achieve market saturation.  At which point it becomes necessary to either innovate or reduce the quality to continue profitability.  High quality labor, on the other hand, never goes out of fashion, so there's no market saturation.

That the quality of U.S. services has been poor for a long time is not a happenstance.  There's been a consistent effort to substitute self-service so labor doesn't have to be paid for.  I think it's a persistent remnant of the fact that some people (slaves, wives, apprentices) used to have to work without pay and that's how the people who control the money prefer it.

Payment for labor is the signal attribute of human equality.  And yes, money is the lubricant that keeps the economy running smoothly.

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by: hannah @ Tue Nov 24, 2009 at 02:15:52 AM CST