EDITORIAL: Playing parks politics won't help

Public parks are a precious resource, especially for cash-strapped residents hit hard by this brutal recession. But the National Park Service's threat to all but shut down New York over a plan to trim the state parks budget is unreasonably unbending.

Last week, it was revealed that the Park Service has warned that if Gov. David A. Paterson moves ahead with a plan to temporarily close as many as 91 parks, pools and historic sites, New York would be excluded from all other federal funding programs - education, transportation and more. Basically, New York would close for business.

The National Park Service may be within its rights, based on conditions New York agreed to when it accepted federal land and money. But the service's heavy-handed brinkmanship is not helpful. And it fails to acknowledge the desperate condition of state budgets in this crisis. The National Park Service made the same threat in California and got its way.

To be sure, we don't want to see parks close. But cuts have to begin somewhere, and it may make sense to shut a park under special circumstances - say, where there are other parks close by - to get through these difficult times. State parks officials have raised fees and eliminated programs to prevent as many closures as possible.

Compromise and common sense, not high-stakes threats, should be the watchwords for these times. hN