Special Commission to Meet March 15
Meeting of DCR Special Commission an opportunity to make your voice heard.
The first meeting of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Special Commission is on Monday, March 15, 2021, at 1:00pm. The state Legislature created the commission in 2019 to examine all DCR operations statewide and make recommendations as to how to make the agency carry out its mission in the most efficient way.
Special Commission meetings are scheduled for once a month through June. Current funding ends in June but may resume later in the year if the Legislature provides funding in the FY22 budget. That process is now under way and monthly meeting dates will be confirmed at the first meeting.
To attend Monday’s remote meeting and view the agenda, click here.
The Special Commission’s work is of vital concern to MCV, its members, park visitors, and our state’s $16 billion annual outdoor economy. Recommendations that come from the Commission will frame DCR’s priorities for the next decade. Since the Special Commission enabling legislation passed in 2019, we have called for strengthening the powers of the DCR Stewardship Council, freezing the use of user fees to fund the state park system through the retained revenue account, and honestly looking at, until the last two budget cycles, the severe disinvestment in our state park system since the Great Recession – a decade of abandonment.
To read the Special Commission enabling legislation, click here.
Special Commissions in the past have avoided funding issues, leaving it to former Governors to use card tricks made to look like reform – moving assets out of DCR where those assets continue to be ignored. The fact is that if we want to have a good park system and someday a great one, then we need to invest more state funding every single year. We are playing catch-up, and no amount of rhetoric will change that sad reality. Yet even now, after DCR performed heroically in keeping parks open during the pandemic, the Baker Administration in its FY22 budget is proposing to cut DCR’s operations budget by $4.0 million and increase retained revenue by $4.0 million, which would force DCR to increase user fees.
The pandemic has proven the essential importance of our green infrastructure for our citizenry’s physical and mental health serving all regardless of income or geography. This, for us, is the task of the Special Commission – get the funding right and make this the decade of parks for all.
DCR Special Commission members, either ex officio or appointed thus far:
The Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs (Chair of the Special Commission)
Designee: Faye Boardman, EEA
The Chairs of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture
Senator Rebecca Rausch and Representative Carolyn Dykema
The Commissioner of Conservation and Recreation
Commissioner Jim Montgomery
The Chair of the Stewardship Council
Councilman Nate Walton
The Minority Leader of the House of Representatives
Designee: Representative Norman Orrall
The Minority Leader of the Senate
Designee: Kate Bowditch, Essex County Greenbelt
Representative of the Appalachian Mountain Club
Designee: Heather Clish, Senior Director of Conservation and Recreation Policy
Representative of the National Association of Government Employees
Designee: Mary Clutchey, DCR
Representative of the Trustees of Reservations
Designee: Fran Blanchard, Managing Director, Stewardship
DCR Special Commission Meeting March, 15, 2021, 1:00pm
To join the Zoom meeting: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/96928100820?pwd=bGVSeXd5UFpDeTFyeEEwZ1o1WmV3QT09__;!!CUhgQOZqV7M!3u0Ir1YrTbXQR7ap-YLzxdSNWcsMuLgvUwjB1Ae0a7WMQt2uJfb5xMfTzVbDOCss_rw$
Meeting ID: 969 2810 0820
Passcode: 732906
One tap mobile: +13017158592,,96928100820# (Washington DC) +13126266799,,96928100820# (Chicago)
For additional connection details and the meeting agenda, please click here.