NH State Parks for Sale

[Relheok]

CONCORD, N.H. -- State officials have identified 27 New Hampshire parks slated for potential sale or lease that they say don't meet the intent of the parks system. Parks officials said New Hampshire is the only state whose parks rely totally on gate receipts for funding, and that's led to deficit budgets and a long list of deferred maintenance. The list includes oceanside parks at Jenness Beach and North Hampton and Cardigan Mountain in the Connecticut River Valley. Also on the list are Pisgah State Park in Winchester; Silver Lake State Park in Hollis; Ahern State Park in Laconia; and Clough State Park in Weare, the New Hampshire Union-Leader reported. The Parks Department scheduled a public information session for Thursday in Portsmouth. Another will be held on June 23 in Peterborough.


Oh Geeeez...... It is sad to me that they are considering selling state parks but have no problem giving aid to thousands and thousands of non working residents for years on end. I am not talking about people recently laid off who have paid their dues. My issue is with the habituals. None the less, this will be a great loss if it goes through.

Link

http://www.wmur.com/news/19788811/detail.html

[Casey A. Wood]

I read the article about this. I really don't feel upset about it. For example Madison Rock. That easliy could be run by the town. This one in particular is more of local interest. Finacially the stae would be better off w/ out it. Makes sense to me.

[overmywaders]

Casey,

Good point. Silver Lake in Hollis is not unlike the town beach I remember in my hometown. Hollis is a wealthy town and can easily afford to maintain the park.

[overmywaders]

Relheok,

Before you ask, yes, I grew up in a town. But it was so long ago that we didn't have sand and had to make the beach ourselves by rubbing stones together. :-D

Thanks for a good topic. NH has some good funding ideas, but I'm not sure the funding for parks - or F&G - is appropriate. I would like to see both get some monies from the general fund, no strings attached, for all the work they do that is not recognized in the state economy, e.g., tourism.

[Banks10]

As long as the land can never be used for anything other than public park land, who cares who owns it? If it makes sense for these recreation areas to not be run by the state then so be it.

[Relheok]

That was my point Banks. It does not say that it will not be sold for residential, commercial etc.... One would assume that it would be sold to the towns, but who knows.


Reed, Thanks for the insight. Any luck with trading Yaks yet?

[lanefj40]

I don't know about the other parks, but I can't believe that
Silver Lake in Hollis doesn't pay for itself and more.
The place was always packed when I was a kid living there in the 70's.
Driving by there now it looks even more crowded.

[owlman33]

The best thing people can do is read the draft strategic plan and submit their comments to the state. You can find the info on this topic here:
http://www.nhstateparks.org/planning-development/development-plan.aspx

I think that the main issue is that the current system of funding for the state reservations/parks is obviously not working, just as it is not for fish and game. One can try to get money from the general fund but that is tapped out as well. Basically what we need is a broad based tax w/a constitutional amendment that guarantees these funds go directly to the parks or fish and game so the government can't pilfer it for their own projects. This has worked extremely well in other states.

For a state whose biggest economic driver is tourism & recreation, they are very shortsighted in their funding and support for the stewardship of our state lands and biological diversity. This is already apparent in the fact that a lot of us in the southwestern part of the state are going down to Massachusetts to fish and hunt because there is 10x more public access and public land, the rivers are loaded with fish and theirs more habitat management which equals more game. I think Steve Belinda said it best in the Spring 09 TU magazine article on Camo Conservationists when he said "When people are forced to hunt or fish in smaller areas, that leads to a degradation of opportunity. People have a bad experience. That leads to a negative impact in terms of recruitment and retention of people who hunt and fish. That means fewer licenses sold..and less conservation funding...which leads to less conservation and with less land, the available areas shrink further...It's a long downwar spiral."
This is exactly what is happening in NH. I can drive through my hometown and see all the places I used to hunt at as a kid which are now house lots and/or posted and its not slowing down. I think this state park issue is part of a much larger and complex beast which is that the revenue coming in is not enough to support the programs that should be fully and adequetly funded as an investment in the economy of our state. Cutting programs is only a temporary fix, I feel that a small broad based tax like an income tax which is the most fair tax can solve this issue because the health of our land and wildlife is important to everyone whether they realize it or not. Ecological services like clean air and water should not be taken for GRANITE. Sorry for the bag cliche.

[overmywaders]

An easier tax to administer - an income tax would create massive overhead - and addresses the issue with irony is as follows:
Right now many wealthy landowners are hiding valuable property behind current use and allowing no hunting and fishing. My proposal: If you wish to put land in current use but not allow fishing and hunting, you pay a yearly surcharge. That tax goes directly to F&G. Within a year our wardens could be smoking $20 cigars. :-D

[OTTER]

1) Is it a fact that land owners can put their land in current use and not allow hunting and fishing? Discriminating readers would like to know? If so we may need to close this loop hole in some fashion.

Still what some wildlife need to survive ( especially true of larger species, Bear and Moose, and smaller criiters that need to roam over large areas.) is to keep land in current use to provide those corridors. And current use protects water quality for many of us (including wildlife) who live nearby.

2) Owlman33 said it so well. How short sighted the people of NH are. Or to put it another way, NH Folks want "something for nothing". They are so afraid of the Mass taxation model that they can't think straight. NH is not MA. In MA watch a highway crew of 4 with two officers; One guy will be working and the others just standing around. Watch a crew of 4 in NH with no officers in sight; at least 3 will be working productively.

There is no way that NH will become taxachussetts. MA became that way because the downtrodden immigrants of 100 years ago when they got power; determined to get even. And they did and do so with a vengeance to this day. My mother was born in South Boston in 1907. The saying was, "Don't get mad get even". NH does not have this legacy.

A modest income tax is most just and will go a long way to solving budget problems and will give NHF&G and the State Parks what they deserve in financial assistance. These agencies bring in tourists and money and tax dollars way more than the pittance they need to survive.

3) Relheok: Let me tell you about the "habituals" whom I have tried to help in direct personal financial aid and dealing with state social agencies over my entire life. These people are almost invariably the result of serious untreated mental or physical illness in themselves or their family. I mentioned my mother. She and her siblings were so poor that they went days without any food. They picked up the garbage that others threw away to get something to eat. They did not finish high school, some not even junior high. They worked hard and all ended off in great shape. But they were healthy and strong and did not have to deal with disabling chronic illness or debilitating mental illness as so many did. I could write a book on what some " habituals" face trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

[owlman33]

I agree with the fact that we need to keep lands open to hunting and the current use program is a good way to start, but penalizing current use landowners to keep lands open to hunting/fishing may cause more of them to pull out of the program and expose the land to development. I'd rather see good hunting lands closed to public access than converted into something else. At least the wildlife populations on those lands will reproduce and help to supplant nearby areas that may be open to public access.

A different approach may be to reward the current use landowners if they keep their land open to hunting and fishing on a small payment per acre system. To make it even more effective they could make it like Idaho's Access Yes Program where you can see which private lands are open to sportsmen/women. They work with the landowners and you can see maps, access locations, huntable species and landowner contact info all online. They've signed up almost a 1/2 million acres of private land under these contracts some I believe to be in perpetual conservation easements and others in short term contracts.

Part of the fact that Massachusetts has a lot of public land is that the sportsman of the state supported a Wildlands Stamp thats tacked onto your license that pays for land acquisitions to increase their wildlife management areas. Now I dont advocate the Mass tax system or their overegulation but they do have some great programs for conservation that lessons can be learned from. Land conservation is great investment because they aren't making any more of it.

Given the fact that my NH resident combo hunting/fishing license with all the stamps costs over $70, I still think its a pretty cheap price to pay for a year of enjoying the great outdoors, even if it doubled I'd pay it. Heck one day of skiing costs that much. But the fact remains that the rest of residents and non residents of this state need to help support conservation programs because they benefit as well and the sportsmen/women have been carrying the brunt of paying for conservation for a long time. Well that's my two cents, I will now step off my soapbox.