Thread: 15 State parks on closing list

I have written to multiple departments in Montgomery and gotten either no response or pass the buck responses. The most accurate seems to be that the Alabama Point damaged area belongs to the DOT and they have no interest in fixing it. I was even told that an estimate had been prepared and the cost to fix was over 17 million dollars.

It does belong to ALDOT, its part of the Right of Way for the bridge.
To say there is no interest in fixing it is not accurate. ALDOT knows it has to be fixed.
But knowing it & coming up with the funds is two different things. ALDOT is not flush with cash and what it does have is often allocated to specific projects.

BTW: This is something that would be eligible for RESTORE ACT Bucket 1 funds, which are allocated by the State RESTORE Council.

I was hoping something like that Carl, even tried to get the site added to the list but obviously it did make it.
Early on I was in contact with Vince Calametti (District Manager with ALDOT) who said about the same thing.
At that point they had the Little Lagoon Pass Bridge project already in the foreground.
Now that is done and OBch is screaming for Hwy 180 widening and a new bridge, so there's no telling.
About like you said, ALDOT is cash strapped and the seawall repair would be a huge project.
RESTORE Act money could be our best bet to get it fixed before or near 2010.
Yes, it will take that long, or longer.

One thing for sure though is as long as citizens keep 'making noise' about the Pass being fenced off it WILL eventually get done.
I know I must've bothered some folks 'bitchin' to everyone possible about the pier taking almost 5 years to build...
Maybe it helped, maybe it didn't but at least THEY knew it mattered to someone ;-)

I've seen the sea wall & fence. All is needed is some concrete to fill in areas that buckled or fell in. Just something to make it safe to use. Not 17 mills worth. Maybe $100,000 worth. Or so. Who would own this 350 room eyesore payed for by restoration money? Does gulf shores need another high rise Condo? Pass widening would be a start.

Originally Posted by KingCrab

I've seen the sea wall & fence. All is needed is some concrete to fill in areas that buckled or fell in. Just something to make it safe to use. Not 17 mills worth. Maybe $100,000 worth. Or so. Who would own this 350 room eyesore payed for by restoration money? Does gulf shores need another high rise Condo? Pass widening would be a start.

WRONG, they have done band-aide fixes numerous times already, and it keeps failing. The wall is well past design life and another band-aide fix is a complete waste of money. It needs to be properly engineered to modern standards and the existing conditions, the existing failed wall need to be removed and a new one installed. Anything short of that and we'll be right back in the same situation in less than 10 years.

There is no need to widen the pass, the Corps just needs to be given the money from the Harbor Maintenance Trust fund to maintain small ports. If you don't know what the HMT is, look it up. In the past Congress has been siphoning money from the HMT to patch up other parts of the federal budget. The recent revision to the HMT is supposed to fix that but the Corps has a backlog of small passes to dredge, so who know when they will get Perdido completely cleaned out.

Which "eyesore"?
I don't know if the City of Gulf Shores needs another condo and could care less about more condos or less condos in Gulf Shores or Orange Beach. But the market sure seems to indicate that there is still demand...
If you mean the replacement of the GSP lodge that was destroyed in Ivan, GSP will own it. A concessionaire might operate it but the State Park will damn sure own it. All this crap about some big hotel firm owning the building or "buying" that part of GSP is just that: crap. The new lodge will sit on less than half the area the old one did and all the un-used habitat that the new one wont occupy has already been restored. BTW, the Park owns ~16,650 linear feet of Gulf-beach shoreline. The pier and lodge complex together will occupy less than 2,000 linear feet of that, less than 13%.
The State Park system sure as hell needs the GSP Lodge to get up & running, revenues from that lodge will help keep the entire Parks system in the black, Parks will again be self-sustaining (well that's if the legislature would stop taking collected fees from them to patch the budget).
People bitch about not wanting to raise taxes to keep State parks open but then keep bitchin when non-tax money is used to rebuild the lodge which in turn would keep Parks self-sustaining. No win situation, damned if we do, damned if we don't..

Bill proposed to keep State Park revenues in the parks | AL.com
By Dennis Pillion | dpillion@al.com
on February 17, 2016 at 4:09 PM

State Sen. Clay Scofield plans to introduce a bill in the Alabama Legislature that would prevent the entrance fees and other revenues from Alabama's State Parks from being redirected to the general fund, Scofield said at a press conference Wednesday in Montgomery."Alabamians spoke loud and clear about their support for Alabama's State Parks," Scofield said. "Alabamians let the Legislature know 'Our parks are important to us.'
"They're important to our economy, they're important to tourism and they're important to people who enjoy the outdoors."
Scofield said his bill would be a constitutional amendment to the Legislature from transferring money out of the state parks funds, and allowing the parks to make long-term plans, upgrades and maintenance expenditures.
Over the past five years the Legislature has transferred $30 million from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which includes the State Parks, and into the general fund. The money came from sources like park entrance fees and hunting and fishing licenses that were meant to stay within the department.
The funds transfers and the uncertainty of how much would be taken by the legislature in a given year led to state park closures, threats of more closures, postponed maintenance and upgrades and a great deal of uncertainty for the park system.
The amount and timing of the transfers were wholly left up to the Legislature, leaving State Parks Director Greg Lein to wonder from year to year how much would be taken, when the money was due and whether the parks could pay their bills with what was left.

"It's huge, it's everything," Lein said of the impact Scofield's bill would have on the park system. "From a planning standpoint, we're left planning from one year to another because we don't know what the transfer will be next year. You can't plan for renovations or capital improvements."

Lein said 2015 was a record year for the parks in terms of attendance, but the parks weren't able to use the funds they generated.
"While it was depressing to know that we had a record year and the money went out the back door, this legislation slams the back door shut," Lein said. "It slams the back door shut, locks it and puts a barricade in front of it."
Rep. Kerry Rich, who is sponsoring a bill in the House, said he has 56 co-sponsors and Scofield said he had "around a dozen" co-sponsors in the Senate. They both said they believed the bill would have enough support to advance.
Alabama's State Parks System is largely self-funded, with most of the parks' operating expenses covered by the revenue they generate.
"We've essentially decided as a state, unlike other states, that we are not going to provide very much general fund money to the parks," Scofield said.
Scofield said he had tried to fight the funds transfers from the park each year since 2011. Last year he introduced a bill that would redirect funding from the Forever Wild land conservation program to the state parks. That bill passed the Senate, but was later withdrawn as many of the State Park system's biggest supporters also supported Forever Wild.
"As many of you know, the parks have always been an important thing to me," Scofield said. "Sometimes we've agreed on ways to help our parks and sometimes we haven't but I think at the end of the day, we're all on the same page about making sure that Alabamians have these God-given natural resources that we can all enjoy."

Now THIS is good news.