Selling Out Griffith Park

Funding our parks without selling them out to commercial interests should be one of our highest priorities. For more information and to find out how you can help, visit the Griffith Park Planning Task Force website or Friends of Griffith Park website.

Picture a hayride. Doesn't the idea conjure up a vision of wholesome family fun? Maybe not. The Los Angeles Haunted Hayride in Griffith Park, presented by Ten Thirty One Productions, entices: 'Then the tractor draws you into a haunted realm of horror.' What awaits in that haunted realm? The sets in and around Griffith Park's Old Zoo are chockablock with fake body parts and awash with fake blood. These are the passive exhibits. At night, action, lights and noise liven up the scene, and violence prevails. Children under eight years old and pregnant women are not allowed to partake of this celebration of sadism.

Last year's Haunted Hayride was inflicted on King Gillette Ranch, just off Malibu Canyon Road. This beautiful property, rescued from becoming the campus of Soka University, hosted men, made up as zombies and wielding chain saws and axes, chasing shrieking women. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and/ or the National Park Service seem to have approved the staging of the Haunted Hayride in 2009. However, several members of the community did not approve. Their comments appeared in the local newspaper Conejo Post-a sampling: '…it is not appropriate for a wild, public park.' 'I find it absolutely shocking that there is an amusement parktype activity taking place in a public, natural park.' 'If you don't have time to drive to Disneyland, you can pay…for the haunted hayride.' Yes indeed. It cost $25 for general admission to the hayride and carnival, $35 for all attractions, including the Hay Maze, and $50 for a VIP pass which allowed its holder to jump any queue. For $10 you could have your picture taken at Pumpkin Patch Photo's [sic].

Haunted Hayride organizers doubled their number of tractors and wagons from four to eight for this year's more easily accessible event, and Griffith Park stakeholders have expressed their dismay. The Parks, River and Open Space Committee of a nearby neighborhood council remarked that 'this event represents a disturbing trend toward usage of our parks as revenue generators, and sets a precedent that undermines the natural values of our parks.' The Committee also expressed concern that 'a new process for awarding concessions is being put in place which circumvents the public.' The Franklin Hills Residents Association observed that 'Commercialization of this great urban wilderness is not what Colonel Griffith envisioned.' Chair of the Sierra Club's Griffith Park Task Force, Joe Young, agrees that urban parks should not be cash registers. He explains that the reason for urban parks is to provide places of tranquility, free from the 'frenetic activities usually associated with ‘revenue enhancements.''

Blatantly commercial, for-profit events could be coming soon to a park near you. It is another opportunity for largely private profit at public expense. Wait. What is meant by 'largely' private profit? This means Ten Thirty One Productions promised to give the private LA Parks Foundation $80,000 to pass on to the Department of Recreation and Parks (DRAP) to use in Griffith Park.

In its current cash-starved condition, it seems the City of Los Angeles will not turn down any substantial amount of money no matter what has to be done to get it. The City will sell the body of Griffith Park to private clients to use as they please. The underfunded Department of Recreation and Parks seeks more public-private partnerships (PPPs). Vicki Israel has been named the new Deputy Director of PPPs, and the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners has been considering a new policy on partnerships.

Blogger Ron Kaye reported on a deal that went sour between the LA Parks Foundation and Warner Bros. to plaster three city parks with signs promoting the 3-D Yogi Bear movie. Warner Bros. would have 'donated' a certain amount of money to the nonprofit Parks Foundation. Most of that money would have been handed over to DRAP. It would have been a good deal for Warner Bros. Instead of paying fees to advertise, the for-profit enterprise makes a donation to a nonprofit entity, getting a bargain and a tax deduction. The Haunted Hayride deal offered these advantages to Ten Thirty One Productions.

An article by Nicole Santa Cruz on the Los Angeles Times website (October 29, 2010) quotes Judith Kieffer, Executive Director of the LA Parks Foundation. Kieffer claims that corporate sponsorships for the system's 420 parks are essential to do what the city can no longer do. In a Mid-Wilshire park, for example, Ralphs paid $10,000 for some benches. Small signs acknowledge Ralphs' contribution. (It is rather a large step from benches and small signs to a full-blown theme park ride and its attendant logistical support.)

In Chicago's Millennium Park, there is a BP bridge, a McDonald's cycling center and a Chase promenade. 'The park would have been pretty bland if these people hadn't stepped forward,' said Ed Uhlir, the project design director for the park. Bland? What does he mean? Master Plan drafts for Griffith Park in 1968 and 2005 may, in addition to looking for revenue sources, have been trying to counter perceived blandness when they proposed restaurants, aerial tramways and a hotel for Griffith Park. But Griffith Park's size and its rough, hilly terrain make it far from bland. The Park is the largest natural wilderness within an American city's limits. It contains numerous distinct ecosystems that nurture a multitude of native plants and wildlife species. Most major cities have landscaped parks with built amenities. Los Angeles is one of the few that offers an authentic and accessible wilderness within its urban core. It is a place where families with diminishing discretionary income can, in the words of former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, 'have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the Earth.'

$80,000 does not begin to compensate for the negative social and environmental impact of an event like the Haunted Hayride. First, the environment is threatened and wildlife disturbed. The Old Zoo area is a transitional zone. It connects built features and a manicured lawn to a natural woodland area. The 2007 Preliminary Large Mammal and Herptile Study of Griffith Park, conducted by Paul Matthewson and Stephanie Spehar for Cooper Ecological Monitoring, Inc., found that the Skyline and Old Zoo areas had the highest species richness with five carnivore species detected in both areas. The Old Zoo area hosted coyote, skunk and bobcat as well as deer and rabbit. Unlike coyote, the distribution of gray fox in the Park appeared to be restricted to only one localized area, the canyon northeast of Bee Rock and near the Old Zoo. Fox may be attracted to areas with more tree cover as they climb and will even nest in trees, but human activity discourages them.

Another natural history study looked at bats in Griffith Park. Stephanie Remington, who conducted the survey for Cooper Ecological Monitoring, points out that, as the primary predators of night-flying insects, including pest species, bats play a vital role in the local ecology. Most bats are intolerant of the urban environment. Habitat loss, roost disturbance and vegetation modification and removal pose major threats to bat populations in the South Coast Ecoregion. Seven species of bats were confirmed in Griffith Park and, once again, the highest species richness was found in the central and west regions of the Park, including the Bee Rock to Fern Canyon area, near the merrygo- round and the Old Zoo areas. One of the study's conclusions was that Griffith Park may be important for sensitive/declining bat species. Usually the merry-go-round parking and the Old Zoo areas are relatively quiet places which serve as buffers for wildlife and habitat on the hillsides. During October, these areas bore the brunt of noise, bright lights and human swarms most nights. The last tickets for the Haunted Hayride were sold at midnight. The disruptive effects on wildlife are out of public view and likely public consciousness as well.

The effects on plants are easier to monitor. The picnic area adjacent to the Old Zoo was littered with Hayride equipment, a large trailer, a faux cornfield, a fake graveyard and a set of a ruined church with its skeletal congregation still occupying pews. The picnic area near upper-merry-go-round parking was taken up completely by Hayride paraphernalia. Fire is always a danger, especially with electrical wires and cables snaking up hillsides, vehicles in use near wooded areas, bright lights and crowds of Hayriders milling about late at night. Luckily, this October was wetter than usual.

Second, the Haunted Hayride results in the inconvenience and displacement of users who come to the Park to enjoy its natural surroundings. The trail above and behind the Old Zoo was closed. The upper-merry-go-round parking lot was fenced off to host carnival rides and food concessions. The Sierra Club had to move its evening hikers to Travel Town. The other two merry-go-round lots stayed open but were used by Hayride patrons. A five dollar parking fee was planned but dropped after screams of protest from park users. A picnic area was fenced off.

Finally, one can only wonder at the City's endorsement of a tawdry spectacle which glorifies blood, gore and violence. Universal Studios now has a 'Saw' ride based on the R-rated movie. Magic Mountain has a ride called 'Scream.' But Griffith Park is not a theme park. Neither is it a cash cow. It was given to the people of Los Angeles by Colonel Griffith to provide us with a natural respite from the surrounding metropolis. 'Give nature a chance to do her good work…' he advised.

Signs near the Old Zoo tell about the WPA-built grottos and walls and request that visitors 'Please enjoy and respect the buildings, walls and habitats…' Respect? What happened to it? The Haunted Hayride was planned without soliciting public input. No EIR was done. In early July, a letter to Barry Sanders, President of the Board of Commissioners for DRAP and head of the Parks Foundation, expressed the support of Councilmember Tom LaBonge for the Right of Entry permit for the Haunted Hayride and expressed the hope that more Haunted Hayrides in Griffith Park would follow. Neighborhood groups were not apprised of the event until September. By then it was a fait accompli.

Thousands registered their opposition to the Griffith Park 2005 Melendrez Draft Master Plan's proposals that would open the door to more inappropriate commercialization of the Park. In this time of shrinking budgets, corporations seem to be the only entities with full coffers. The first impulse of desperate municipal governments is to run, begging bowls in hand, to these corporations. Everything is for sale, including what has been and should still be a public trust, urban parks. Once again, the losers are frequent Park users and permanent Park residents-the animals and plants that depend on Griffith Park. Rather than running to commercial entities after every budget cut, the City might consider establishing relationships with organizations like the Trust for Public Land and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which were instrumental in saving Cahuenga Peak. Finding ways to fund our parks without selling them out to commercial interests should be one of our highest priorities. For more information and to find out how you can help, visit the Sierra Club, Angeles Chapter, Griffith Park Section website or visit the Friends of Griffith Park website.