By Megan Hansen

Funding from Sacramento County for Carmichael’s Effie Yeaw Nature Center is on the chopping block again– and county officials are looking at transferring operations to a non-profit. The American River Natural History Association is scrambling to raise the necessary $1.5 million to do that. But Carmichael resident Heidi Kuehner has started a group to keep the county from eliminating the park’s funding. She says the county shouldn’t rely on a nonprofit to pick-up the slack.     

 

Kuehner: “I think it’s unfair for the county to take that park and make it a non-public park, and to ask private citizens, even though it’s a nonprofit that’s been serving the area so well for so long, I think it’s unfair for the county to expect them to run it.”

 

Sacramento County has spared the park from closure during several previous rounds of budget cuts… but a $165 million budget deficit means no more funding beyond July.

 

Kuehner says she hopes to see an outpouring of volunteers at a Board of Supervisors meeting in mid-May.

 

The county’s budget hearings are set for mid-June. Officials have also proposed severe cuts to law enforcement and health and human services.