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Funding sweeps leave state parks in shambles

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FLORENCE — The steady gaze of Earnest McFarland, who in the mid-20th century served Arizona as a U.S. senator, governor and state supreme court justice, looks down on every visitor to the state park that bears his name, a restored frontier courthouse in dusty Florence, built in 1874.

“We will never be perfect in our government, but high ideals can predominate,” reads a brass plaque beneath the portrait, quoting one of McFarland’s favorite sayings.

Yet perfection is hardly the word that comes to mind during a tour of McFarland State Historical Park. Massive cracks stretch from floor to ceiling on more than one of the building’s original adobe walls. A support beam braces a crumbling exterior wall, keeping the wall and sections of roof from collapsing. In another room, which over the years served variously as a jail, county hospital and prisoner-of-war camp, caution tape warns visitors to avoid a gaping hole in the floor.

“McFarland did a lot for this state and this community, and I think he would be very saddened if he saw the condition of this building today,” says assistant park manager Terri Leverton.

McFarland’s park is not the only one in need of repair. Similar problems plague many of the 30 parks that comprise the Arizona state parks system, from failing septic systems in popular parks along the Colorado River to leaky roofs and crumbling walls at monuments like Tombstone Courthouse and Yuma Territorial Prison.

Fixing all of the system’s infrastructure and maintenance issues would cost $20 million a year over five years, says Arizona State Parks director Ken Travous.

“If you’re looking at the things that need to be repaired or refurbished, you’re talking $100 million,” Travous says. “Buildings are falling down, literally.”

But the cash-strapped parks system found no relief this year, as state legislators again swept millions of dollars from special funds earmarked for capital projects. The money comes from user fees, taxes on boating fuel and a share of state lottery proceeds, and state law dictates they are supposed to be spent on developing and maintaining parks and open space.

The statutes lack a provision that can prevent legislators from steering the funds toward other purposes – a loophole they have taken advantage of repeatedly.

During the economic downturn of 2002, for example, tens of millions in capital funds were stripped to make up for deficits in other state agencies. The economy rebounded, but the funds were never replaced.

“It started getting really bad in 2003,” Travous says. “They cut the money for the grants, and then they cut our capital money. We never made it back to where we were before.”

With the state again in an economic tailspin, pleas for increased funding for the parks system have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, an additional $13 million has been stripped from maintenance and improvement funds to help plug a $2 billion hole in the 2008-09 budget.

“In a year like this, frankly, upgrading toilets is not as important as meeting the state’s budget crunch,” says Arizona Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox. “Right now we were very, very short, and there were no other options.”

As in the past, the stripped funds — which now total nearly $40 million since 2003 — are likely never to be replaced. “It just doesn’t happen,” Arzberger says. “There is never any anticipation that those funds can be paid back.”

Supporters of the park system acknowledge that during the present budget crisis, some cuts were inevitable.

But they also argue that the continual shortchanging of the state parks budget is shortsighted and will eventually cost the state far more because small problems that were once funded year-to-year are snowballing into major restoration projects.

Mounting problems at popular parks like those on Lake Havasu, a big draw for out-of-state visitors, negatively impacts tourism – a bright spot for Arizona in this economic storm.

“Our system is in real decline, and it has been since the last budget crisis, in 2001,” says Doug Frerichs, president of the nonprofit Arizona State Parks Foundation. “Sitting here and imagining that no cuts are necessary is absurd, but serious cuts in the state parks budget – the sweeping of funds – will just devastate this system, and it makes no sense to do it.”

If maintenance issues continue to spiral out of control, some popular parks may have to be closed temporarily, parks officials say.

Buckskin Mountain State Park, near Parker on the Colorado River, is one. State parks officials say it has a failing sewage lift station, which is a critical component of its septic system.

“If that sewage waste system goes down, that park goes down,” says assistant Parks director Jay Ream. “If that were to overflow, sewage would flow into the Colorado River.”

Money could likely be found to repair the septic system, Ream says, but it would come at the expense of pressing maintenance issues at other parks. “It’s getting to be like triage in a train wreck,” Ream says. “You have to take care of the most critical patients first.”

In difficult economic times, a cure for the state parks system’s woes is not readily apparent. That is in spite of the fact that data shows the parks system to be an overall moneymaker for the state, generating over $126 million in tourist revenue per year, according to a 2002 study by Northern Arizona University.

Sen. Arzberger said she supported an eventual increase in the state parks budget, as well as a restructuring of the department’s funding mechanism to ensure a more steady revenue stream. But until the state learns to match its revenues to its expenses, additional spending on the parks department will be a difficult sell to other lawmakers.

“It has to come behind building schools and building roads and meeting the essential issues. It has to come behind that,” Arzberger says.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

‘Out the Vote’ courts gay voters before fall elections

PHOENIX — A voter registration drive geared toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender voters is ramping up in the face of an electric presidential contest and a statewide ballot measure to ban gay marriage.

Dubbed “Out the Vote” by its proponents, the campaign started as a response to the concern of community activists wanting to get people involved in politics. Its backers say it is nonpartisan.

"People get disengaged with politics because they feel that no one specific party represents them," says Annie Loyd a community leader of Out the Vote. "We just want to simplify the voter registration process and get people voting."

The campaign focuses on providing the resources, education and information for people to register to vote or host registration drives at their businesses.

"We had a similar program in 2004 for the election, and we registered 2,500 to vote from bars alone," says Sam Holdren, a representative of Equality Arizona. "We want to reach out to people, including those who aren’t around the typical bar scene."

The campaign relies on word of mouth promotion, along with the support of GLBT community publications such as Echo and In Touch magazines to reach people who overlook the bars. It is funded by community donations and free advertising from both publications, and it is not endorsing any candidates or positions, Loyd says.

Community leaders insist that this citywide voter registration drive is completely separate from the issues facing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and exists primarily to educate people how to register.

"The Legislature and politicians are out of touch with the people in Arizona," Holdren says. "The only way to change that is by changing who is sitting in the legislative seats. We encourage people to sign up, vote by mail, be familiar with their polling places."

But the fact remains that there is a lot at stake for this voting bloc – namely a ballot measure that would essentially ban gay marriage in Arizona and a sizzling presidential race.

Although Arizona voters rejected a similar measure to ban gay marriage in 2006, the law is alive and well after the Arizona Senate voted to place it back on the November ballot in an extremely heated and lengthy legislative session in late June. Senate President Tim Bee, R-Tucson, cast the deciding vote.

The presidential race features Illinois Democrat Barack Obama versus Arizona Republican John McCain. Both men have stated that marriage should be between a man and a woman but argued against a federal law banning same-sex marriages. McCain is on record saying it’s a state-by-state issue and endorsed Arizona’s 2006 ballot measure that voters ultimately rejected by a 2 percent margin.

Supporters of Out the Vote, meanwhile, are casting a wide net for new voters. The campaign is reaching out to GLBT-supported businesses, churches, event promoters and organizations and providing them with the resources to get their peers interested and registered to vote.

"I think there’s a feeling of ‘one vote doesn’t matter’ but it’s different when it’s a community effort," says Patrick Roland, editor of Echo magazine. "Most gay people don’t live in a box and interact with just gay people. We want to get everyone involved."

The next Out the Vote event is the "Out the Vote Summer Chill" Gala at the Wrigley Mansion on Aug. 16. Participants are invited to stop by and register if they haven’t already done so by logging on to servicearizona.com.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Lawyer may cruise to victory in Navajo Co. contest

SHOW LOW — The race for the Navajo County Attorney’s Office may not be much of a race at all, now that one of the two challengers is asking a judge to remove his competitor’s name from the ballot.

The complaint stems from petition signatures that challenger Christian Ackerley, a Democrat, collected to get his name printed on the ballot. He needed at least 478 valid signatures from registered voters in the county to enter the race. Ackerley collected 814.

But the other challenger in the race, Democrat Brad Carlyon, claims otherwise. He is contesting the validity of 571 signatures which, if election officials agree with Carlyon, would ultimately spoil Ackerley’s chances.

Carlyon is currently the deputy attorney for Apache County. He and Ackerley are competing for a seat that was opened after incumbent Navajo County Attorney, Mel Bowers, did not seek re-election.