State Parks preparing list for park closures

PHOENIX — State budget cuts have prompted officials to prepare a list of proposed park closures they said could turn into a “death spiral.”

Arizona State Parks Executive Director Renee Bahl intends to present the parks board with the recommendations at a Jan. 15 meeting.

The closings could begin later this month. Several parks were closed last year because of budget cuts and facility problems.

The latest recommendations would reflect an $8.6 million midyear budget cut approved during the Legislature’s December special session. The cuts must be implemented by June 30.

State Parks spokeswoman Ellen Bilbrey said while Lake Havasu City officials inquired about obtaining a lease of Lake Havasu State Park, no decisions have been made.

“When you’re focusing on a parks system and what’s best for the parks, you don’t do them one by one,” she said. “(The board) has to look at the whole issue before they can make a decision.”

Bilbrey said a thinned staff is working on addressing several issues to the board at its Jan. 15 meeting.

“The staff is down to very few people left in our administrative offices and we’ve dropped 40 percent of our staff across the board,” she said. “People are here working around the clock trying to figure out how to present all of this information to the board.”

The state also will lose any operating revenue produced by any closed parks, Bilbrey said.

“It’s kind of a death spiral,” she said.

Bahl and other officials will base the closures on complex criteria that include visitation numbers, revenue and costs to operate and close.

Figures released Monday by State Parks indicates the only sites where revenue exceed costs on a per-visitor basis were Alamo near Wenden, Kartchner Caverns in Benson, Slide Rock near Sedona, Catalina near Tucson, and Cattail Cove and Lake Havasu, both at Lake Havasu City.

Last year, the agency closed Jerome Historic, McFarland Historic in Florence, and Oracle.

News-Herald reporter Nathan Bruttell contributed to this article.