State parks under threat of privatization

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Budget cuts and freezes have hurt Malibu parks.

By P.G. O’Malley/Special to The Malibu Times

Laboring under a series of budget cuts and an increase in visitation, the California state parks system finds itself caught in a classical Catch 22.

“With the increase in fees scheduled for July 1, the public is going to expect better service,” Malibu Sector Superintendent Hayden Sohm said, “but there’s been a hiring and purchasing freeze for over two years now.”

So what the public will get, Sohm said, is just barely business as usual.

Meanwhile, a survey completed by the California State Parks Foundation reports that more people than ever are taking advantage of the 277 units of the country’s largest state park system. “Visitation is a solid economic driver,” says foundation Acting Director Barbara Hill. “Visitors spend $2.6 billion locally in association with parks across the state.”

In a separate survey, the foundation found that more than 80 percent of respondents favored a one-tenth of one percent sales tax to keep the state parks running, a strategy used by the state of Missouri to run its parks. Hills said she doesn’t see this kind of thing happening in California anytime soon, but she describes the goal of the 44,000-member foundation as “some kind of dedicated funding stream for the park system.”

But Gov. Arnold Schwarze-negger has other plans. The state park system is one of the governor’s targets for privatization, and the Legislative Analysis Office in Sacramento is running the numbers to see what kind of cost savings will result from taking some or all of the parks private. And while the foundation is against privatization in principle, John Koeberer, who runs two state parks and has concessions in others, thinks public-private partnerships is where the park system is headed. Koeberer is CEO of California Parks Companies and chairman of the California Parks Hospitality Association. “I think it’s going to go that way because the governor wants it to go that way,” said Koeberer, who thinks the trend will be toward shared responsibilities with the private concessionaires likely to take over fee collection, some maintenance functions, hospitality and campground management, leaving general administration, interpretation and law enforcement to the park department.

Sohm says budget cuts and freezes have hurt Malibu sector parks, including Malibu Creek and Leo Carrillo, on a number of different fronts. He’s coping with the high cost of maintaining a fleet of aging vehicles, along with the rising cost of fuel; he’s lost half of his maintenance staff and is facing a 15 percent reduction in his budget for seasonal staff, which means less lifeguard coverage at Leo Carrillo, Point Dume and the pocket beaches at Malibu’s north end.

Asked about privatizing some or all the park functions, Sohm pointed out that the Malibu sector is already doing that. The newly restored Malibu Pier will be operated according to a 20-year contract with an outside concessionaire. On the other hand, Sohm is not a huge fan of across-the-board privatization. “I’m not convinced it’s going to save the public money or that it will necessarily be cheaper and offer higher quality services.”

Hill agrees. “There are currently 125 concessionaries that operate on state land. State parks realizes maybe 10 percent of the $86 million in annual revenue. We need to be cautious about selling off our assets.”

But Koeberer, who was part of Schwarzenegger’s transition team, projects there will be a pilot program in place by next year to test the viability of private-public partnerships.

“I’ve worked with campground concessionaires,” Sohm said. “They got the job done. But it was more a business than a passion. The public has to decide what kind of an experience it wants from their state parks.”