State of Arizona/Courtesy photo Homolovi II is the largest of the sites at the park. It appears that each family unit occupied four to five rooms. Each room is relatively small, probably due to the scarcity of large logs.
Well, it's making national news: Arizona is closing many of its state parks because of budget problems. My father called this week from the East Coast asking if it's true.
Sadly, I see the reasoning and the why; however, a problem remains in keeping the parks secure.
State parks officials are struggling to figure out how they're going to keep closed state parks free of vandals and looters. The first wave of closures began Feb. 22.
Many of the parks (see the links below for details) have been victim to looters and vandals before. For example, the Homolovi State Park - near Winslow - is accessible via dirt roads from the Navajo reservation and nearby ranches. Big deal? The park contains the remains of four ancestral Hopi villages and a host of cultural treasures.
And, for parks officials to block access points to and secure Homolovi and other parks they said it would take as long as 30 days and cost as much as $200,000.
Again, we're talking about ancestral Hopi culture artifacts and sites dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries.
What do you think? Many people have said in recent weeks that the sites are one of the cheap things low-income residents and visitors can do during the Great Recession.
Oh, and remember that after Homolovi, the parks staff has to determine how to close 12 more parks, at a cost totaling $1.4 million.
Posted: Monday, March 15, 2010
Article comment by:
Ex- Archeo.
I am no statistician, but if the 2010 Arizona budget shortfall is $1,4 billion, and the Parks budget has been reduced to $7.5 million, what good is it to close parks? Isn't the total Parks budget now only .5% of the total shortfall? The entire agency could be wiped out, and it wouldn't make a difference in the shortfall. If the 2009 shortfall was $2.4 billion, and the Parks budget was $26 million, the entire Parks budget was only about 1% of the shortfall. If the entire state budget for 2009 was $9.9 billion, the Parks budget of $2.6 million would be only about .026% of the state budget. Abolishing all of Parks wouldn't help much.
Not only do the Hopi NOT have casinos, but no money from the state general fund has ever been used on the state parks. All the monies used in the operation of the parks has been from the Heritage Fund, grants, donations and a good deal of the labor to run the parks come from volunteers. Some 1,600 volunteers have done the work of around 150 paid positions. These include volunteers at the parks themselves (docents, store clerks, clerical work, etc.) and the Site Stewards who monitor sites in the parks and all over the state on Federal, State and County lands. This legislative body has raided the Heritage Fund (set aside by the voters as untouchable...funny thing there) of every dime to help "fix" the budget. They even took money willed to the parks system upon the death of the citizen who gave it until they were shamed into giving it back! Rep. John Kavanagh, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee has taken it upon himself to see that HCR 2040 never sees the light of day because "it doesn't fit his political agenda". HCR 2040 would have let the voters decide if they wanted to opt to add $12.00 to their car registration fees. $9.00 of that money would have gone to the parks to remain open (with free admission to all of them with a sticker on your license plate) and $3.00 to keep some rest areas open. There is no doubt that these places set aside as state parks are a good chunk of our Arizona history, prehistory and natural wonders. As citizens of the state of Arizona, we should have been given the chance to at least indicate whether or not we were willing, at $12.00 for each car owner, to keep them open for ourselves. And, yes, I fully believe that it will cost us far more in the long run to "close" them than to keep them open. How about the revenue lost to the communities who feed and house the visitors who came to the parks? How do you "close" the outdoors? Only to the law-abiding folks, certainly not to the pot-hunters, vandals, and others who have no respect for land, history and culture.
Posted: Monday, March 15, 2010
Article comment by:
Larry Tice
Are you unaware of Az Site Steward Program? It's an all volunteer program in which the public can be trained and get involved on an avocational level with the stated goals and mission to protect azriona's vast historic and cultural resources ie., a passive monitoring ( non-confrontational ) presence to gather description of looters and vandals who in turn report to law inforcement, simple, cost effective concept. Sometimes the mere visible presence of these "visitors" is enough to detour vandals and culture thieves!!
Posted: Friday, March 12, 2010
Article comment by:
J Noel
to Happy In PV - - - - The Hopi do not have casinos.
Posted: Thursday, March 11, 2010
Article comment by:
J Noel
Maybe they should give Homolovi back to the Hopi people - whose ancestors lived there - and has to be some sort of sacred ground for them. It is a special place although rarely visited.
Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Article comment by:
how-ard doing
Aimee: Steven rails on the editors for not being thorough. I think he goes overboard at times, but has good points too. That aside the state has stepped in it this time. I spend my free time going fishing, but won't go to Watson Lake anymore because I have to pay to get in. My taxes already pay/paid for the lakes. I will not pay again. The state wants to save money, but has to pay to close the parks and keep them closed and secure. Good. The history on Homolovi does not matter to me, it's the state's park now. They have to do their job of more than just closing the gate. The problem they have discovered is it costs money to secure a site. Too bad. They made a choice and choices have consequences. They need to make tangible cuts elsewhere. Thank you, Tim for bringing this up. Pierce, Mason and Tobin are lucky people like Supervisor Chip Davis are working it out to keep a few local parks open. That can't happen everywhere.
Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Article comment by:
aimee guthrie
My guess is Steven can't read. Tim refers people "to the links below" so they can see for themselves. Too busy to write it himself, maybe. I felt it had more credibility seeing it on the state parks site, rather than a blogger trying to be a know-it-all.
Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Article comment by:
Happy in PV Supports charter schools
Why aren't the Hopis volunteering to secure this sacred spot for their children? Where does it say the American taxpayer must protect the indians sacred lands? Put the Casino money to work for the future of themselves. Preserve your own park.
Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Article comment by:
wayne paulson
Steven, I think you said it for him. It's a blog -- not an editorial.
Posted: Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Article comment by:
Sr. Catalyst
What's got even more national attention is the closing of rest stops on the highways!
Posted: Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Article comment by:
Steven Ayres
Tim's idle musings only scratch the surface, and he passes up an important teaching moment. Many Arizonans, used to simple answers and instant gratification, think that cutting the state budget is a simple matter. They rarely see or hear about the web of interdependent factors that government holds together, such that anywhere you look to reduce funding, you cause new costs elsewhere. Most government programs are not simple spending measures, they are designed and built to reduce social costs to all of us.
Tim's example, Homolovi Ruins, is a case in point. Until the early '80s it cost the state -- us -- nothing. To most citizens it was a relatively remote pile of old walls. To the Hopis it was an ancestral home and sacred site. To archaeologists it was a trove of information about the migrations and lives of Hopis. And to pothunters -- thieves -- it was an unprotected treasure mine.
The social cost of doing nothing about Homolovi was daily desecration and the steady loss of artifacts and knowledge. The state began spending a little money to help prevent this loss and educate Arizonans about their heritage. Closing the park puts the site back where it was, forsaken and deteriorating. And there's a new cost on top of the old -- the businesses that have benefited from visitor traffic in the park have to look elsewhere to pay their rent. You can't find these sorts of costs and benefits acknowledged in the state budget, but they are very real.
Extending the example to other areas is easy -- kicking people off AHCCCS raises costs for families and hospitals, eliminating support for the seriously mentally ill raises costs on families and communities, cutting the Department of Juvenile Corrections raises costs for counties. Almost any cut you can name comes with a contingent cost, often greater than the savings. Some kinds of cuts also trigger losses of federal matching funds as well, compounding the revenue problem. It's a management nightmare.
This is why the Legislature's adamant resistance to talking about raising revenue through taxes and fees is dead stupid. You have to have those options on the table to prevent spiraling down into bankruptcy. I'd have liked to see Tim take a couple hundred more words to make that point. It needs saying in the Courier.
