Legislators would have to cut $6 million from Environmental Protection Fund.
Fall colors are seen at Chittenango Falls State Park in 2008. State budget woes have closed the trail around the waterfall at the park, but the parking lot and overlook is still open. All state parks would stay open under a plan being promoted by Gov. David Paterson.
Albany — New York may yet keep all its parks and historic sites open and fully staffed this difficult fiscal year including the Memorial Day holiday next week, according to senior officials in the Paterson administration.
Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari said Sunday that he expects his chamber will approve Paterson’s proposal. Senate Democratic leader John Sampson said he needs to review details of the bill, but funding the parks before the budget is settled is a win for New Yorkers.
Gov. David Paterson today will send a bill to the Legislature that would keep all New York parks and historic sites open through next March under the usual hours, services, parking, and other facilities, according to the senior staff who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the bill wasn’t yet final or introduced.
Open and shut
A look at the status of state parks affected by the late state budget:
Clark Reservation: Open; restrooms are open, maintained by a volunteer group; no reservations or permits.
Chittenango Falls: Parking lot and overlook are open; trail is closed.
Fort Ontario: Closed.
Old Erie Canal: Trails and parking lots are open; bathrooms are closed; town of DeWitt is doing some maintenance at the Cedar Bay site.
Helen McNitt (access to Cazenovia Lake): Open.
Oriskany Battlefield: Open, operated by National Parks Service. (That’s been the arrangement for some time).
Selkirk Shores: Closed for swimming.
Springbrook Greens Golf Course at Fairhaven: Closed. The regional parks office is looking for a private company to operate it.
» Related story: State parks are furloughed as New York lawmakers fail to pass a budgetBut the Legislature would have to agree to cut $6 million from the Environmental Protection Fund. Many legislators try to protect the fund and the environmental and public health programs it funds. The fund has been raided several times in recent years to bolster the general fund.
“The days of wine and roses are over,” one of the top officials said, quoting former Gov. Hugh Carey during the fiscal crisis in the 1970s. “These are the days of bread and water.”
Democratic and Republican lawmakers in stalled budget talks as recently as Saturday in the governor’s mansion said a top priority for them was to keep the parks and sites open. Sampson, a Brooklyn Democrat, proposed the parks funding in last week’s public leaders meeting on the budget and Canestrari, an Albany County Democrat, has repeatedly pushed to keep the parks open.
“It’s great,” Canestrari said in an interview. “He’s listening to the public, which has been outraged over the park closing. I give him credit for acknowledging it.”
He said lawmakers would prefer to fully protect the fund, too. “But these are difficult times.”
He said funding is needed for parks and historic sites not just to remain open, but to continue critical maintenance.
To reduce that “is a risky proposition we don’t want to gamble with,” Canestrari said.
Sampson said it’s important to keep the parks open, although “we have some concerns about how this problem is being resolved.”
Paterson had agreed to keep the parks open if the Legislature agreed to cuts elsewhere to fund it because the state faces a $9.2 billion deficit. But there has been no agreement on the budget, which was due April 1.
The bill would keep 41 parks and 14 historic sites open through March 31, 2011. It would also return 23 parks to full service, such as keeping the restrooms open.
Removing the issue of parks funding would eliminate one of the stumbling blocks in negotiation for a 2010-11 budget that is expected to be more than $130 billion.
Paterson has insisted on a corresponding spending cut to keep parks and sites fully funded. The result would be a 4.5 percent cut in about 30 programs funded by the EPF. Those include solid waste treatment programs and the purchase of open space to protect land from development.
With every senator and Assembly member having at least one park or historic site in their district, the fight to keep them open became a hot political issue this election year. Although advocates warned even popular parks were to close after the April 1 start of the fiscal year, the result so far has been reduced services such as locked restrooms, mostly at the least used sites. A week ago, however, the state parks and historic sites agency began locking some gates to parking lots and locking some restrooms.
Some state-run beaches on Long Island, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and several historic sites dating back to the Revolutionary War have also been scheduled for reduced services or closing.