California State Parks

The following is an extract on an article dealing with the funding issues for California State Parks. Private funding has been found for some of those slated for closure tomorrow. Five, including the mining and mineral museum apparently won't make it.

"There remain five parks for which the state has struggled to find donors or other agencies willing to chip in: Benicia State Recreation Area, the California State Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa, Gray Whale Cove State Beach near Montara, Zmudowski State Beach near Moss Landing and Providence Mountains State Recreation Area in San Bernardino County.

At least one -- the Mining and Mineral Museum -- is planning to shut its doors and pack up more than 13,000 objects in its collection, according to curator Darci Moore"

By Kevin Yamamura, Sacramento Bee

Friday, June 29, 2012

Sad news. I hope Gov. Jerry "moon beam" Brown doesn't get wind of the value of the specimens or he may try to sell them to try and help pull this states self imposed budget nightmare out of the abyss.

Governor "Moon Beam" magically produced $10 million (not magically....my taxes will go up, up and up) to keep the state parks open for an indefinite period - in the case of the mineral museum we are looking at only a few weeks to months at best. It is the packing of the specimens that is most cause for worry - in it's initial trip from the Ferry Building to Mariposa....well, let's just say there was some damage and some pieces that never made the trip. Even in the fantasy world of selling the collection as Ron mentioned, remember it won't keep the museum open - any money would go into the state's 'general fund', which translates to: the bureaucrats will all get new cars, have a meeting in Bora Bora, or something else they deem 'necessary'. From what we know, the packing of the collection has been halted for the time being and they are hoping that something can be worked out to benefit everyone.

Lesson of the day: when you put politicians in charge of something, expect it to go to hell in a handbasket.

There is a volunteer group, California State Mining and Mineral Museum Association, based in Mariposa, that has been working with the museum for several years and submitted a proposal to State Parks to take over operations on July 1. I was told that the State's reply ran to multiple pages (I don't know what it said) but in the end the Association decided they couldn't accommodate all the conditions - at least that's my understanding of the situation. So there has been an effort to keep it open and, from what I understand, it's not all that expensive to operate. It may cost more to pack and store it. A real shame.

Museum is still open, as reported on CSMMMA's facebook page July 5.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2012 02:31PM by Barb Matz.