Just got another email:
From: Ken Kramer, Director, Lone Star Chapter, Sierra Club
VICTORY AT TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION!!
Commission Rejects Proposal to Sell Part of Big Bend Ranch State Park
THANKS TO YOU David, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission this
afternoon unanimously REJECTED the proposal to sell a large portion of the
Big Bend Ranch State Park to a Houston businessman. Their decision came
after a hearing that lasted almost three hours and testimony by 20
people, all of whom with one exception asked the Commissioners to either
reject the proposal and/or at least delay further consideration until
after a wide-ranging public debate on the pros and cons of the proposal.
Apparently Texas Parks and Wildlife Department received HUNDREDS of
faxes, phone calls, and e-mails in opposition to the proposed sale.
It was very heartening to see and hear the number and diversity of
people who showed up today at the Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting to
speak against the proposed land sale.
In the end we owe a debt of gratitude to Parks & Wildlife Commission
Chairman Joseph (Joe) Fitzsimons. He (and other commissioners) pinned
the staff down on the question of whether there was any guarantee that if
the land in the northern part of the park were sold that the agency
would be able then to purchase the inholdings in the southern portion of
the park in order to be able to provide more public access and manage
the property better. The answer was that there was NO guarantee - even
though that was what the staff and the prospective buyer of the Cienega
portion of the park said they were committed to pursue. In the end,
the inability of the staff to assure the Commissioners that the
inholdings could be purchased if only the agency had the money from the sale of
the Cienega was one of the deciding factors in their decision.
A thank-you letter to Chairman Fitzsimons and his fellow Parks and
Wildlife Commissioners (faxes to 512-389-4814) would be appreciated. (One
confession: in our earlier action alert, we misspelled Fitzsimons' last
name, using two "m's" instead of one - but he still did the right
thing!)
This whole discussion and controversy has driven home to the
Commissioners (and to others) the desparate financial situation in which the
agency finds itself after state legislative budget cuts and unwillingness
to enact laws providing for new park acquisition funds. Many of us at
the Commission meeting today again offered our services to help the
agency obtain the funds to do their mission.
STAY TUNED - MORE WORK TO BE DONE: There is work to be done on
continuing to protect Big Bend Ranch State Park and work on ways to dealing
with the inholding issue in the southern portion of the park. AND there
is work to be done in protecting other parks. There may be some other
proposed park closures and transfers coming to light soon, and these may
be more problematic to deal with because there is definitely not enough
money in what the Legislature appropriated to
TPWD to be able to handle
the needs of the state park system. So, don't go away - stay close to
your computers,phones, and fax machines.
BUT RIGHT NOW - Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. The
outpouring of public opposition to the sale of part of Big Bend Ranch State
Parks was a definite factor in today's unanimous decision to reject
that proposal.
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