Opinion

Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009

Bouquets and Brickbats: Brickbats all around on state parks

Comments (0) |

The federal government is threatening to take back some state parks — and withhold federal funds from others — if the state goes through with a plan to shut down most of its parks.

Here’s an idea: If Arnie shuts down our prisons, will the feds take them over? Didn’t think so.

Officials with the National Park Service, by the way, say they are trying to “start a dialogue” with state lawmakers.

“We’re not trying to jump on them when they’re in dire straits,” one Park Service official said.

Could have fooled us. Brickbats all around — to the feds, for their heavy-handed approach — and to Arnie, for his willingness to turn our state parks into sacrificial lambs.

Cemeteries need better management

The county’s civil grand jury went digging for answers at our local cemeteries — and wound up uncovering some questionable practices. While most of the county’s public cemeteries are well maintained and efficiently run, the jury did find some problems, including:

• Two of the public cemetery districts — Estrella-Pleasant Valley and Templeton — have fewer than three trustees, which violates the state Health and Safety Code. At Estrella-Pleasant Valley, the only apparent trustee is the owner of an adjacent winery; a second trustee “has never been located.”

• Estella-Pleasant Valley has no endowment fund to ensure ongoing maintenance of the cemetery.

• Three cemeteries — Estrella-Pleasant Valley, Santa Margarita and Templeton — have no accessible burial registers, which can make it difficult to locate graves.

• Maintenance is an issue, particularly at some older cemeteries. The Adelaida Cemetery, for instance, has ongoing problems with gophers.

“Gopher problems have led to holes going into graves,” the report says, “and in 2007 a finger bone with a wedding ring was found beside a grave with a gopher hole leading into it.”

We aren’t going to fault the trustees in charge of these cemeteries, many of whom are volunteers.

Still, we need to do better — much better — by our departed. We toss the grand jury a bouquet of sunflowers for shedding light on the situation, and we join in calling on the Board of Supervisors to ensure that vacancies on cemetery boards are promptly filled by members who are “knowledgeable of the relevant law and responsibilities.”

Shame to cut programs for new moms

Remember that old saying, “Every mom is a working mom?” It’s still true. And it goes double — maybe even triple — for new moms.

To its credit, San Luis Obispo County has some wonderful resources for new mothers. Those include the Breastfeeding Clinic and Breastfeeding Warmline, which are staffed by trained lactation experts who offer advice and guidance to nursing moms. But now, county budget cuts could take a toll on both those programs. The Breastfeeding Clinic may lose two of its three staff members — greatly limiting the number of clients it will be able to serve — and may force the Warmline, a bilingual phone-in service, to completely hang it up. That would be a shame, as these programs are credited with playing a big role in the county’s high breastfeeding rate, which ranks us 10th in the state.

Several moms, health care professionals and others dedicated to giving babies a good start in life have been lobbying to keep the programs intact. Good for you — we offer you baby’s breath bouquets for your efforts.

We understand, though, that there are many demands on the county, and it is inevitably going to have to reduce some services to close a $30 million budget deficit. For the Breastfeeding Clinic and Warmline, the answer could lie in a public-private partnership. Programs as worthy as these should be able to attract some healthy private support.