The Senate passed a bill that creates a study committee to review options to revitalize Mississippi state parks. Republican Senator Neil Whaley chairs the Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Committee. He says state parks have been neglected for 20 years. The options in Senate Bill 2846 include returning some to local governments, creating wildlife management areas, and privatizing others.
“We are not looking in anyway to close any parks and we are not looking to have someone come in and potentially lease a park and leave out a park. We’re going to craft this to the best of our ability and it’s going to be a work in progress,” said Whaley.
There are 24 parks in Mississippi. Whaley says one of the estimates to restore them is $147 million. He says it’ll take another $7 million or more to maintain them. Democratic Senator Hob Bryan of Amory is concerned it may result in privatizing public parks he says belong to the people.
“We have given billions, billions, billions, billions of dollars away to the well connected, billions of dollars away to out of state corporations, plenty of money for that. Now we’re going to throw-up our hands and say ‘oh my, this state just can’t handle this,’” said Bryan.
The bill calls for five members of the committee to be appointed by the Lt. governor and five by the speaker of the house. Whaley says the study committee will present their findings to the Senate.
