Once again, it takes an election year to get some public issues back on the table.
With crumbling facilities, staffing shortages and reduced hours of operations at some sites, the 600,000-acre Texas state park system has become one of the hot political issues in the November election.Candidates for governor are chiming in and state lawmakers are gearing up for what is sure to be a push for a major budget boost to get the state's canyons, rivers and trail parks cleaned, opened and restored to levels the public demands.
Naturally, for our legislature and governor, the trouble is the result of budget sleight-of-hand.
$100 million generated by a tax on sporting goods on state parks... was allocated for parks in 1993, but lawmakers capped the parks' share at $32 million two years later and have since appropriated even less.
It's a puzzlement when conservatives can't see the wisdom of supporting conservation. Where's today's TR? We sure need him, in more ways than one.