Blue Grass, Red State

"State parks not getting bang for bucks" was the headline on Pol Watchers. I think mine is better. Do you?

The article itself states that no state park system is profitable. Well, Governor, what do you do about it?

I think it's great for the state to preserve some of its most beautiful and unusable land in a state parks system, even if it doesn't turn a profit. However, I think Kentucky's system is ridiculous. All these stupid golf courses are ridiculous, and the "resorts" are so 1950s ridiculous.

A lot of this crap needs to be sold to private firms who think they can turn a profit operating it. The state has a lot of options here: sell the land and everything that goes with it, sell just the buildings and stuff while maintaining ownership of the land, make some ground rules about what can and can not be done in or on the land and water, sell the land to developers, whatever!! Just do something smart that will enable you to stop wasting taxpayers prescious dollars!

The bottom line is, regardless of how smart the people who operate the government and its various departments are, the government will continue to operate everything inefficiently and this parks system will never turn a profit. It is not a knock against you, government workers. It's just the system you work in.

It's not that it's broken. That implies that it worked at some time. It actually never worked. We need to stop trying to fit this big clunky through the little circle.

Look, even in Louisville - that place so many of you people love to hate - some politicians and community leaders understand this. We wanted a ring of parks wrapped all the way around Jefferson County. Thankfully, we didn't pursue 100% city government financing. Honestly, I don't know to what degree the city has been involved, but I can tell you for sure that there has been A LOT of private investment. That's why they got the Humana guy David Jones in there to raise some money to build a foundation to keep the thing paid for for years to come. Donations from philanthropists are enabling the park expansion and development.

Has anybody ever been to Bernheim Forest? It's a beautiful, impeccable place down around Clermont that is not a state park. That's what all the state park types need to shoot for.

Taxpayers are not philanthropists. When you steal from people, you don't then go and give them credit for being such wonderful, generous people. And I think if most Kentuckians had their way, about 2/3 of all government buildings would be imploded tomorrow and we'd all have circuses and festivals celebrating our reclaimed freedom.

You can only fit the crazy, clunky, bulky, stupid polygon of government through the circle of life if it's small enough to fit.