California parks director resigns amid scandal
Source: Sacramento Bee
State Parks Director Ruth Coleman resigned this morning and her second in command has been fired after officials learned the department has been sitting on nearly $54 million in surplus money for as long as 12 years.
The moves come in the wake of a scandal, revealed by The Bee on Sunday, in which a deputy director at State Parks carried out a secret vacation buyout program for employees at department headquarters last year. That buyout cost the state more than $271,000.
... The department sat on the money for unknown reasons even as it carried out, over the past year, the unprecedented closure of 70 parks to satisfy state budget cuts.
Most of those closures did not occur because nonprofits and local governments found money to take over the parks. The money could also have prevented drastic cutbacks in hours, staffing and services that have stricken nearly every park in the state over the past two years.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/20/4645141/state-parks-director-resigns.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
and BINGO, we have more gated communities for the 1% 
She either ordered, or went along with, a gag order to muzzle state park employees at Anza Borrego Desert State Park from speaking out about damaging impacts of a big energy project proposed on BLM land that shared a 5-mile border with the State Park. So the final EIR for the project including ZERO discussion of impacts on the Park, which is mind-blowing.
We know the gag order wasn't issued locally. It came from Sacramento. The State Parks director had to be complicit; if she had any backbone she should have insisted that comments be submitted for the EIR on this damaging project.
Who gained? A huge wind company owned by an oil company.
State Parks and the Governor officially denied the gag order. So then why was not comment submitted for the EIR, even though staff spent months preparing one? The gag order claimed by this whistleblower, the park's former superintendent, was later confirmed by another newspaper, the Borrego Sun, which found multiple sources who confirmed the coverup. (The Sun is a print-only, no online edition.)
Here is what the desert next to the park looks like now; the project is not yet completed but they have destroyed thousands of square miles of once pristine desert land. Soon 100+ turbines each 450 feet tall with bladespans the size of football fields will be going up, complete with flashing lights, noise, etc. What a wilderness experience. The land dissects endangered bighorn sheep habitat so Secretary Salazar issued a take permit that allows them to be killed.
This is what excavation for just one turbine pad looks like; over a hundred more are planned; note how it dwarfs the mountains in the background:
I've been a major solar, wind, conservation and biomass advocate for years, but these huge mega projects miles from cities are just plain stupid. Why not have a small wind turbine in every backyard or solar panels on every roof, instead of destroying the environment for MegaWind & Solar projects?
maybe AFTER THE FUCKING PARKS ... they can put some to California Infrastructure...ya think? 
There should be enough for other things as well. $54 million is a hell of a lot.
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The park has been closed for awhile now because of the California budget problems. The park only had two rangers living near the cavern entrance but they couldn't even afford to continue that. Not long ago, vandals broke into the caverns' visitor center and stole or destroyed things, including stealing the generators and wiring for the lighting system. They did $100,000 worth of damage. Fortunately, none of the rare and beautiful formations of the caverns were destroyed. But the caverns remain very vulnerable with no one around, in a remote section of the Mojave Desert. They're the only limestone show caverns in the California state park system.
