CNBNews

“It’s disappointing that New Jersey won’t be opening two of its popular swimming areas this Memorial Day Weekend, and potentially for the whole summer. People won’t be able to picnic and swim with their families during the holiday. Our state has a shortage of swimming areas as it is so this will be a blow to many of the families who wanted to recreate outside this weekend. This closure is a sign that we must do better to fund our parks and parks system. We should be able to fully fund important park staff such as lifeguards who have necessary jobs by paying them a living wage. New Jersey’s people are suffering because we aren’t doing enough to keep our parks open and well-managed.

“In New Jersey, our state parks and beaches are important for our economy and our families. Most families don’t have beach houses or country clubs to go to and plan vacations visiting these sites. The closing of these areas is especially serious because New Jersey has a shortage of recreation space already. Most state recreation areas are filled by 10 am on weekends because there’s not enough space for everyone. There are only seven swimming areas for all 5.5 million people in North Jersey (now only 5 functioning) and we haven’t opened a new one since 1981 in Wawayanda. This is because the state doesn’t have enough funding to manage our parks.

“There are massive backlogs and parks are falling apart without improvements for years. Voters have dedicated monies for capital repairs and improvements. By 2015 it was supposed to be $30 million a year. Instead, we’re only seeing $8 million a year. Over the last decade the parks budget is down 40%, despite us adding 40% more open space. Ten years ago, there were 1,000 parks staff and now we have only around 400. Christie had a history of cutting park funding and giving it to programs for open space or “stewardship” that ends up logging forests. Under Governor Christie, DEP enforcement fell down 60 percent and staff 40 percent, while the budget was slashed by a third.

“State Parks in NJ provide $4.5 billion a year in economic activity and we need to invest in them. It can also be a matter of safety because without attended swimming areas, people will go elsewhere to recreate. Every couple of years Terrace Pond people drown from illegally swimming without supervision. Closing these two pools could lead to more illegal swimming and more deaths. It will be a nice weekend for people to enjoy our parks but many of them will now have nowhere to go. We need to put funding back into our parks system so we can continue to grow and improve the open space that belongs to all of us.”