It’s almost embarrassing to be from New York with the tomfoolery going on at the capital. There’s all sorts of novel ideas to save a buck coming from the Governor’s office and apparently nobody has the foresight to see what shutting down state parks might cost in the long run. When you shut a park like Thacher down, it still requires maintenance.
It’s not like some little corner store (park map here) you close until it’s rented again. There are numerous buildings, playground and picnic areas, and roads and trails that have to be maintained. If you let them go even for a season, you’ll pay more to get back to normal in the future. We’re in the Northeast, not a vacuum, weather extremes can do a lot of damage to a facility if not taken care of.
Let us not even mention the number of people that had weddings, family reunions, birthdays and other gatherings booked for the park this year. Even more of an insult, Vermont has the vision to even put some money into their parks to lure the New Yorkers there since we’re shuttering ours.
You want the answer? Let the Towns of New Scotland, Knox, Berne and Guilderland run the park for the summer and split the profits. Yes, that’s right, the park makes money when it’s open, not when it’s closed. The state could even lease it out to some entrepreneur…
Waiting for sanity to come back to upstate…\
TK
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