Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Portions of Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to close seventy state parks appear to be illegal because sixteen of the parks on the list received federal funds, the Mercury News reported. “The funding is a grant to the state, like a contract,” Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service in Washington DC, told the Merc. “It says the state makes a commitment to provide these places for public use in perpetuity. To not do that is essentially a breach of that contract.”
The park service also says that if Brown closes the parks, then California could become ineligible for future federal grants, a potentially huge blow to the state park system. The Merc has previously reported that Brown’s plan to close state beaches violates the California constitution because beaches cannot be closed to the public.
