Oklahoma lawmakers had the perfect opportunity to hit a homerun by giving the green light to a comprehensive plan designed to fix our ailing state parks.Instead, they whiffed, and gave everyone who utilizes the parks the big fat “L.”As a result, our state parks and the millions of people who visit them each year emerged from the session among the biggest losers.Our Department of Tourism and Recreation officials had proposed an eight-year plan that would invest $350 million to fix our long-neglected parks.Supporters argue that if properly maintained, our parks should be a tourist attraction not only for Oklahoma residents, but also those living in neighboring states like Texas who often venture here to enjoy our abundance of mountains and lakes. Right now, many of our parks are eyesores due to years of neglect.To be clear, parks officials weren’t proposing vanity projects — like luxury lakefront cabins, statues paying homage to our leaders or five-star restaurants.They wanted the funding to fix crumbling infrastructure that has careened from one crisis to the next. There’s a cave-in that’s gone unfixed for at least five years. Cabins that are uninhabitable. Parks with failing sewer systems and gas lines. One park didn’t even have safe drinking water for a time. Another has a water well that could rob a nearby community of water access when it fails.Lawmakers though seemingly shrugged their shoulders at these potentially catastrophic issues that, left untreated, could sicken or kill someone.Rather than embracing what appeared to be an inherently reasonable list that prioritized maintenance needs over the next eight years, legislators allocated a fraction of what’s needed.Just $35 million. That’s 10% of Tourism and Recreation’s proposal.Of that, our parks will receive $12.5 million the first year and $7.5 million for the next three years.It’s well short of what it will take to adequately fix and keep up our the most basic systems to make the parks function. Now, half the needed repairs won’t get done.State officials over the decades have ensured there’s a plethora of parks.The problem is they love the idea of opening state parks so much, we now have over $1 billion in assets to care for.And, it seems like everytime we turn around, they’re proposing adding another or pushing back against suggestions that we consolidate.Even as park officials were unsuccessfully begging for a long-term maintenance plan this session, our tone deaf legislators were plowing ahead with a ...
