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Jim: jdipeso@rep.org
(253) 740-2066 / 2010
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Arizona Throwing Its State Parks
Away
January 28, 2010
The
Arizona Parks Board made the hardest decision of its existence January
15 when it reluctantly voted to close a baker’s dozen of Arizona’s
finest natural treasures, a decision forced by the Legislature’s raid
on funds designated for state parks.
Four parks already are closed. Thirteen are on the closure list. Unless
$3 million can be raised this year, the remaining nine will be
padlocked.
With Arizona’s budget in dire straits, there is no alternative to
making significant adjustments in the state budget. Legislators,
however, took the easy way out, grabbing money that citizens have paid
in good faith to take care of their state parks, and giving little
thought to the state’s long-range economic prospects.
State parks are assets that will help ensure faster growth and job
creation when the economy turns around. Too many in the
Legislature, however, think nothing of closing parks, as if natural
heritage were a trifling luxury to be tossed aside when it’s time to
pull in our horns.
What shallow thinking. Tourism is the second highest driver of
Arizona's gross domestic product. Arizona’s travel industry generated
more than $18 billion in value and supported more than 310,000 jobs in
2008, even as tourists pulled back in the teeth of the recession. State parks alone contributed
more than $266 million in value to Arizona’s economy in fiscal year
2007.
Three-fourths of the economic value created by tourism was the result
of out-of-state visitors. People travel to Arizona to visit the state’s
mountains, admire its canyons, camp in its forests, raft its rivers,
learn Arizona’s colorful history, and enjoy the state’s endless
sunshine.
Arizona’s
state parks are magnets for out-of-state visitors. Tombstone Courthouse
State Historic Park, scheduled to close March 29, draws two-thirds of
its visitors from outside Arizona.
Those tourists rent hotel rooms and cars, eat in restaurants, and
patronize stores to buy sun block, fishing tackle, fuel, and gifts for
their families back home. This is true economic stimulus that yields
good returns, year after year.
If visitors feel valued, they will tell good stories about Arizona when
they go home and they will return to enjoy the state’s natural
treasures again. If they don’t, they won’t. Closing state parks would
send a terrible signal to tourists that their business is not valued.
Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and California would gladly accept visitors’
business if Arizona puts up too many "sorry, we’re closed" signs. That
would be a disservice to Arizona communities that depend on visitor
spending to support local economies and local services.
That goes double for rural communities. As a 2009 report published by
the Arizona state Office of Tourism pointed out, the jobs, spending,
and tax dollars generated by visitors are economic engines for
communities outside the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas.
In one-third of Arizona’s 15 counties, tourism is responsible for 10
percent or more of total county employment. One out of every 10 jobs in
Yavapai County, for example, is supported by tourism. Two of Yavapai
County’s state parks, Fort Verde and Red Rock, are scheduled to close
March 29 and June 3, respectively.
Closing state parks is eating up the tourism seed corn. It’s penny-wise
and pound-foolish. Arizona’s legislature should take a long view of the
economy and realize that tourism will help Arizona’s economy recover
and resume growing. Never again should the state mortgage its future to
construction bubbles that are here today and gone tomorrow. Like the
tortoise racing the hare, the wisest course is to base the economy on
steady industries like tourism that are proven engines of economic
growth.
Closing state parks would throw sand in the gears of that engine.
Arizona must not throw this valuable asset away.
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