Parks are a vital part of our community .
They reflect a basic value of society and the benefit we place on the personal recreation, habitat preservation and environmental education. Whether we play in them, learn from the docents or are inspired by their natural beauty, we all have special memories from our time in the county parks. But the parks are in peril. As the revenues allocated to the County shrink and its mandated expenses increase, less funding is available for the parks. As a result, in the last decade, inadequate funding has reduced staffing while the number of visitors has significantly increased.