What it costs when parks get political

The alleged management blunders at Arizona State Parks & Trails may have damaged priceless archaeological treasures.

They also reveal a sharp political edge that is damaging other shared state values.

Why?

Because stewardship of the State Parks should be as nonpartisan as the values the Parks represent.

But it isn’t.

The Republican administration of Gov. Doug Ducey faces charges from Democratic lawmakers that the Duceyapproved leadership at State Parks trampled irreplaceable resources in a rush to develop some revenue-producing tourist amenities.

But the Ducey-approved leadership that focused on increasing gate receipts at Parks is the direct result of Republican philosophical and budgeting priorities that predate Ducey.

Year after year, Arizona’s GOP controlled Legislature sought to gut the 1990 voter-approved funding for Parks. They finally succeeded in eliminating the Parks’ share of Heritage Fund money during the recession.

That’s also when state direct support for the Parks vanished.

This reflects a Republican philosophical distaste for publicly funded public amenities — and a Republican fondness for privatizing public resources. It predates Ducey. But he built on it.

Without state funding, Parks had to rely more on ticket sales, which led to a push for development of just the kind that two former state archaeologists say was advanced without proper respect for archaeological sites.

So, yes. It’s political.

But the average Arizonan wasn’t asked about the ideological decisions that left Parks underfunded and desperate to raise revenue. There was no public discussion about this policy change.

It was pushed through as part of a GOP agenda that stands in direct opposition to the voters’ 1990 approval of augmenting Parks funding annually with Lottery money through the Heritage Fund.

Now we all pay the price for a unilateral GOP decision to starve the Parks.

The cold, hard cash being spent on this mess comes from taxes paid by all Arizonans:

❚ Parks Director Sue Black is on paid leave during a criminal investigation into whether the agency she heads ignored laws protecting Native American and other archaeological sites. She is still being paid $175,000 a year, according to reporting by The Republic’s Craig Harris.

❚ Deputy director Jim Keegan, also on paid leave, is still collecting his $120,000 a year salary.

❚ Attorney General Mark Brnovich is investigating, which will cost the state in resources his office can’t use for other needs.

So the mismanagement controversy at the State Parks costs you — regardless of your party registration.

Now consider a few other reasons why managing Arizona State Parks should be nonpartisan:

❚ Arizona’s natural beauty is not a Republican or Democratic value. It is a shared treasure worth preserving for anybody’s grandchild. Everybody’s grandchildren.

❚ The prehistoric people who called this place home 12,000 years ago didn’t put a modern partisan edge on their stone tools. What they left behind tells a story anyone can try to reconstruct. Regardless of political leanings.

❚ The 1880s justice handed out at the Tombstone Courthouse, now a state park, may have had political overtones, but modern interest in that history has universal appeal. The lessons to be learned are not about right wings and left wings.

❚ The duty to be good stewards of this state’s natural, historical and cultural heritage transcends party affiliation because Arizona’s state parks are for everybody. Regardless of political leanings.

In today’s political climate, looking for a nonpartisan approach to public land management is akin to hunting unicorns. Even if you find one, interest groups from right and left will launch dueling campaigns for control of the poor creature.

Nevertheless, there are shared values in our state — and it’s past time for politicians to act like they understand that. We all pay and we all lose when the Parks are mismanaged.

Ducey’s first administration showed just how bad it can get. Maybe his second will be marked by decisions that are more about the people than his party’s politics.