Park entrance fees unneccesary
3 comments December 6th, 2008
Lots of good discussion on one of the previous posts. I thought I’d add a couple of thoughts here in a more visible area than add to the comments list.
A few people said they would have no problem paying an entrance fee to state parks and rightly pointed out most states charge an entrance fee. Illinois is one of eight states that does not.
Although I personally wouldn’t object to paying an entrance fee or a yearly fee, I think it’s unnecessary. As I pointed out in Wednesday’s editorial, nearly $19 million of DNR money was taken and used to prop up other areas in the state budget. The DNR had the money to keep the parks open. I’ve been told that it would have cost between $2 million and $2.5 million to keep all 11 on the hit list open. Still would have left about $17 million to be used elsewhere.
I think those kind of funds sweeps should be illegal. I mentioned earlier that money that you paid for your hunting and fishing licenses was part of the diverted dollars. Another fund I didn’t realize was tapped was an environmental fund that is the product of the specialty plates you buy. If you bought that environmental plate with the cardinal on it, some of that money was used elsewhere in the state budget rather than for conservation.
Another reason I think park entrance fees would be the wrong way to go is that you’d have to pay someone to monitor the gates as people enter. In some parks you’d have to build the gates, so between personnel and capital, an entrance fee could actually cost the state money in the short term. I don’t know how long it would be before you’d see a return on investment.
Of course you could just have a ranger go around to collect money and issue tickets, but I’m sure lots of folks would throw those tickets away. You’d have to create another level of bureaucracy to collect payment.
The state has a constitutional duty to provide and maintain a healthful environment, and that includes state parks and other outdoor areas. You could argue that closing the parks is unconstitutional. Wonder if there are any environmentally friendly lawyers out there who would want to tackle that one.
