Time to get serious about funding state parks

A bit of perspective on that last one: A decade ago, I worked to compile a complete guidebook for public campgrounds in Washington, from Humptulips to Glacier, Walla Walla to Metaline Falls.

Researching the book was a great learning exercise — a chance to reacquaint myself with treasured outdoor spots my parents had carted me to, as an infant, and to discover hundreds of new ones.

But in subsequent years, working on a revised edition, I watched camp after camp literally fall off the map due to state, federal and local budget cuts. After a fervent plea in this column for a permanent voice for parks funding in Olympia, a like-minded citizen's lobby group, Friends of Washington State Parks, was born.

The group, wielding a part-time lobbyist and small army of volunteers, actually made headway. It succeeded — and continues to today — largely in containing the damage of round after round of budget wars in a state with an unpredictable revenue base and too few "discretionary" targets to slash during down cycles.

Nevertheless, by the time the second edition of the guide appeared in 2003, a dozen or more campgrounds were gone, and many others — including a number of Washington State Parks — were in financial peril. Ultimately, many of those parks remained open but were turned over to management by private or other public entities.

Fast forward another five years. Last year, I began researching an all-new incarnation of the camping guide, and guess what I found? As state population continues to climb, even more campgrounds and open spaces are closed. Perfectly usable National Park Service or U.S. Forest Service camps that were cut off by flooding now sit unused, because there's no money to repair roads to get to them.

And Washington State Parks, which long has flirted with alternative remedies, such as the memorable day-use parking fee experiment, to supplement miserly financing from the state Legislature, once again is warning of park closures — this time dozens.

Enough, already. Clearly, legislative lobbying by citizens (bless them all) who believe fresh air is a basic food group has been a worthy tool, but one of finite use. Parks supporters are left playing a losing game of closure-list Whack-a-Mole. This year, yet another budget workaround — a $5 opt-out parks fee on license tabs — has been proposed to contain the damage. Fine, give it a try.

But let's stop fooling ourselves. If we want reliable public services, it's time we the people finally address the state's clinically insane, boom/bust revenue structure — especially its near-exclusive reliance on sales taxes.

Argue if you will — and I do find at least some merit here — that the state takes in plenty, but simply spends too much. But whether you want the state tax revenue stream to be a gush, a trickle, or something in between, at least acknowledge that, for reasons of efficiency and common sense, it needs to maintain some semblance of reliable flow.

To put it in simpler terms: Keeping the gate open on your local state park should not depend upon your boss' ability to buy a larger yacht every other year.

Can we at least start there?

Hope so, because this stuff matters. I was born here. I love this place. It used to be a great place to live. Increasingly, I question whether it still is.

Hate to say it. But after watching this lather-rinse-repeat cycle over many decades as a journalist and citizen, that pop-psychology definition of insanity — doing the same thing, over and over, without altering the parameters — keeps popping up.

I've begun to question the will of the people, and thus the ability of the state government, to maintain the quality of life we once knew here. I find myself increasingly wondering whether I stay more out of habit and loyalty than informed choice.

Yes, parks are only a small part of a picture that includes roads, schools, transportation and other public services, and yes, this is an oversimplification. But to me, parks are the canary in a coal mine called quality of life.

We can live with fewer of them. We can live with none at all. The question is why we'd ever want to.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com