Future of Old Adobe in limbo

<p>The rumored closures of Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park and Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa that came to light last week prompted an Assemblyman’s hearing Tuesday and calls to keep the sites open, but so far, the state isn’t declaring exactly which parks are on the chopping block.</p><p>In fact, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office on Tuesday seemed to back away from its earlier assertion that around 100 of the 278 state parks could close, saying the number wouldn’t be as high and that the governor wants to keep as many parks as possible open to the public.</p><p>Schwarzenegger’s office also delayed the disclosure of a list of state parks to be closed and did not set a new date for its release.</p><p>That isn’t satisfying North Bay Assemblyman Jared Huffman, who chairs the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee and held an informational hearing on potential park closures on Tuesday.</p><p>Huffman said Schwarzenegger “took us over the cliff” by cutting $6.2 million from the state parks budget this summer, on top of a previous $8 million cut.</p><p>Huffman, D-San Rafael, said parks officials, supporters and nonprofit agencies at the hearing in Sausalito on Tuesday helped attendees “get a much better handle on the fallacy of saving money by closing parks.”</p><p>State parks boost tourism, provide jobs and have a “multiplier effect” on local communities, Huffman said.</p><p>“Parks are not a liability on the balance sheet; they’re an asset,” he said. “They’re an economic engine.”</p><p>But in Petaluma, where the Adobe historic park is on the outskirts of town and generates relatively little revenue, closure is an attractive option for the state, Huffman acknowledged.</p><p>“It’s an easy park to close, because of its layout and low revenue,” he said. “But it’s also an easy park to keep open — it wouldn’t take much, by way of community support.”</p><p>The park — home to Gen. Mariano Vallejo’s two-story mud-brick ranch house that served as the headquarters of his sprawling 66,000-acre rancho in the mid-1800s — was previously threatened with closure last year and in the early 1990s.</p><p>Its gates were shut two days a week and a group of about a dozen volunteers had to keep the animals fed and do security checks for about six months, said Karen Nau, a former organizer of the Old Adobe Fiesta celebration.</p><p>If the Adobe is indeed closed this year, Nau said she’s hopeful Petalumans will again step up to keep the park available as an education resource for local schoolchildren.</p><p>“People are pretty passionate about parks these days, and we don’t have enough of them,” she said.</p><p>Nau, a teacher and former City Council member, floated the idea of having parents of homeschooled children act as “caretakers” of the park while providing hands-on history lessons.</p><p>“When you ask people to be caretakers at their park, it almost sounds better than ‘volunteer,’” she said. </p><p>Huffman said he supports the concept of a surcharge on vehicle registrations that would go toward the state parks system and provide the owner with an annual access pass to every park. An effort is under way to place the proposal on the November 2010 ballot.</p><p>“It’s the best idea I’ve heard,” Huffman said. “Nobody wants to keep having this fire drill over park closures every time we have a tough budget year.”</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>