Spotted on Ecology of Absence: an AP wire story on the status of Illinois state historic site closures. The article has a particularly strong focus on two sites near St. Louis, Fort de Chartres and Fort Kaskaskia, in Randolph County. When this decision was announced, lawmakers were swamped with calls from angry constituents, who saw nothing but machine-politics-as-usual. Many pointed out that once you calculated in unemployment benefits and problems resulting from deferred maintenance, the financial benefit from this action would be somewhere around zero; in fact, if you take lost tourist dollars into account, you're looking at negative numbers:
"About 50,000 people a year visit the two French colonial forts in Randolph County, according to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. Conservatively, Crow guesses each visitor spends at least $10 while there. That's half a million dollars in a county of just 34,000 people, where the Illinois Department of Employment Security says unemployment has jumped to 7.4 percent from 6 percent over the past year."
The story goes on to say that after the General Assembly voted to restore funding, hopes went up that the sites would not close; last Wednesday, the governor freed up $231 million, which lawmakers hope can be used to keep these sites open. However, the article also notes that Blagojevic "hasn't acted on a second measure that authorizes using the money to restore the cuts. And it isn't clear that he will by the end of November." (See more here.) Though the angry phone calls and letters from consituents (not to mention visitors from other states) have derailed the closure plan so far, something tells me it's going to take a fresh round of complaints to tip the governor's hand towards saving the parks. —Stefene Russell
