Park Advocacy Day Fights for Historic Investments in our Public Lands
Parks & Trails New York, and our partners at the Open Space Institute, wrapped up another successful Park Advocacy Day last week. This was our 16th anniversary of bringing park and public land advocates together from across New York State to meet with our legislators about the importance of funding investments in our parks, historic sites and open spaces.
Once again we hosted our advocacy day virtually but despite the fact that we did not meet with our lawmakers in-person, it did not detract from us having impactful conversations with 25 decision makers in every corner of the state. 52 individual participants representing 20 Friends groups, 7 partner organizations and 5 state park regional commissions encouraged support for a range of proposed budget items including capital and operating funds, the Environmental Protection Fund and the Park and Trail Partnership Grant Program.
Since we were not able to gather together ahead of our meetings last Thursday, PTNY and OSI hosted a virtual prep-session on March 7th to review our talking points and the logistics of the day. It was also an opportunity for us to hear from champions of our parks system, including State Parks Commissioner Erik Kulleseid, Senator Jose Serrano and Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell, both of whom chair key committees in the legislature. It was wonderful to hear from these influential leaders about the potential impact that this year’s “game changing” budget proposals will have on our public lands.
Because we were unable to host as many Friends groups and advocates as we had when PAD was in-person, PTNY launched three grassroots campaigns to support our advocacy priorities, two of which were sign-on letters. First, a letter addressed to our state's leadership outlining our priorities was signed by over 50 organizations and a second letter campaign designed for New York park lovers was signed by over 500 individuals!
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we led an effort to capture the benefits and impact the Park and Trail Partnership Grants have had on Friends groups, public lands and local communities. Groups used an online platform to submit video clips (testimonials) to help us secure a $2 million grant program, an increase of $1 million over last year. We are excited to share that 16 organizations participated and the final montage is fantastic! Watch it here.
This video montage along with our partner sign-on letter were sent to our legislators late last week as a final effort to secure these proposed, historic investments. We are continuing to monitor the developments with the state budget as each house releases their own proposals, which will ultimately be negotiated with the Governor’s office by April when the budget is due. Thank you to everyone who participated in Park Advocacy Day, joined our sign-on letters or provided a testimonial about the PTPG. We couldn’t successfully fight for our parks without you!
For more information about our advocacy priorities or the impact of Friends groups on our public lands, visit the Friends Group Gateway, powered by Parks & Trails New York.