Like every department, Sacramento County parks is taking devastating cuts. The department needs $5 million to minimally operate its facilities, from the American River Parkway to Gibson Ranch to the Effie Yeaw Nature Center.<\/p>\n
Its budget now is less than $2 million.<\/p>\n
Despite a temporary three-month reprieve, the Effie Yeaw Nature Center, a national model for outdoor education and habitat preservation in an urban area, remains threatened with closure. This icon, approaching its 30th anniversary next year, has provided nature tours, Maidu Indian programs, camps, school field trips, wildlife counts, birding classes, art workshops and live animal exhibits to thousands each year.<\/p>\n
The center already has suffered major cuts. Last August, it had 25 staff – five full-time and 20 part-time. With budget cuts, the center this year is down to six staff – four full-time and two part-time. <\/p>\n
Then came the announcement that the center would close April 1. After public outcry, the county Board of Supervisors gave the center a short reprieve, until July 1.<\/p>\n
What happens after July 1? <\/p>\n
The county parks department and the American River Natural History Association are working on a proposal to eliminate the center as a county park unit and transition to a nonprofit-run unit – like Fairytale Town in the city of Sacramento did after 38 years as a city-run organization. The city and Friends of Fairytale Town Inc. signed a partnership agreement on October 1, 1997.<\/p>\n
A May 1997 headline told that story: “City manager wants all-out squeeze on services, jobs to stem deficit.” As part of a radical revamping of city services to eliminate a huge budget shortfall, the city manager wanted the “cultural divisions” to become “as self-sufficient as possible.” That’s when the city transferred operation of city-owned Fairytale Town to the Friends of Fairytale Town.<\/p>\n
Such a transition for the Effie Yeaw Nature Center won’t happen overnight. <\/p>\n
Currently, the center receives about $200,000 a year in outside funds – $75,000 from the American River Natural History Association and the rest from donations, classes and special programs. <\/p>\n
As a nonprofit park, fundraising would have to increase significantly. When it was fully staffed, the center received $1 million a year from the county.<\/p>\n
County parks staff plans to bring a proposal for a phased transition to the county board by April or May, leading up to June budget hearings.<\/p>\n
One thing is clear: To assure the future of the American River Parkway and the nature center, supervisors must create a permanent funding source for these treasured public assets.<\/p>\n
Like every department, Sacramento County parks is taking devastating cuts. The department needs $5 million to minimally operate its facilities, from the American River Parkway to Gibson Ranch to the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. Its budget now is less than $2 million. Despite a temporary three-month reprieve, the Effie Yeaw Nature Center, a national model […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}