Action Alert

Your Help Is Needed To Provide Access To Parkway Lands!

A threat to California's State Parks offers us a rare opportunity to ask for fairness in State Park funding and help for the San Joaquin River Parkway. Beginning March 12, budget hearings in Sacramento will begin addressing a proposal to close 48 state parks in California.

Closing State Parks is a bad idea that doesn't save much money. With your help, we can turn the situation around and, in the process, ask for financial support to provide public access to state land in the Parkway.

The proposed closures not only jeopardize existing State Parks but make an implicit threat to State Parks help on the San Joaquin River Parkway. Closing State Parks will fuel the argument that the State cannot create new parks in the Valley--this at a time when we have the most undeserved population and are one of the fastest growing regions in the state.

Now is the time to explore funding solutions for the Parkway to provide access to public lands, improving our quality of life. Whether through alternative fees, special funds, or strategic spending reductions, we join with our conservation partners throughout California to identify and present the Legislature with alternatives to these drastic measures.

Here's how you can help:

Please fax or mail a letter today to:

Assemblymember Ira Ruskin
Chair, Budget Subcommittee on Resources
State Capitol, RM 3123
Sacramento, CA 95814

Fax number: 916-319-2121

- Oppose the closure of California State Parks!

- Ask for State Parks help on the San Joaquin River Parkway!

Please send the River Parkway Trust a copy of your letter, so we can get it to our local legislators. Our fax number is 559-248-8474.

For a sample letter please click here.

For other information on this issue, please follow the links below:

Letter sent by the River Parkway Trust

March 2, 2008 article from the Fresno Bee

California Council of Land Trusts Action Alert

List of Parks slated for closure

State Parks Valley Vision

Thank you for your support of the Parkway and California's State Parks.