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Recently, Save Mount Diablo has made great progress helping our good partner California State Parks advance its land acquisition efforts. Consider the following examples from this year.

On October 13th, we got exciting news about the Senate bill we worked on to help improve California State Parks’ land acquisition process, Senate Bill 630 (SB 630) introduced by Senator Allen.

The Governor signed SB 630 into law earlier that day. This new law will take effect in January.

More than a year ago, Save Mount Diablo started a working group of conservation organizations to help improve and support California State Parks’ land acquisition process and program.

Together, this group worked hard on advancing SB 630 over many months. We provided testimony, wrote letters of support from our group, and spoke with key elected officials and lobbyists.

We also held numerous coordination meetings between our working group and the new head of California State Parks’ land acquisition program.

The working group included Save Mount Diablo, Save the Redwoods League, Peninsula Open Space Trust, Sempervirens Fund, Sonoma Land Trust, California State Parks Foundation, and others.

Thus, it was a sweet victory learning we were successful with our effort.

This new law will streamline the acquisition process for qualifying state parks’ projects.

California State Parks will no longer need the approval of other agencies, like the Department of General Services and the Department of Finance, to acquire land for existing state parks when the consideration to be paid for the acquisition does not exceed $1 million.

This new streamlined process will cover all the land acquisition projects we have been hoping to see completed with California State Parks for addition to Mount Diablo State Park (CEMEX, parts of Curry Canyon Ranch, the Balcerzak inholding, Viera North Peak, etc.).

The prior requirement that California State Parks get land acquisition pre-approvals from agencies like the Department of General Services and the Department of Finance had created a deathly slow process and backlog of projects across the state.

It was killing off, or substantially delaying, numerous good potential acquisitions.

Getting SB 630 signed into law by the Governor on October 13th was a big step forward in helping improve California State Parks’ land acquisition process and program.

But we will not relax on this effort until we start seeing the strategic properties we have been trying to get added to Mount Diablo State Park conveyed to California State Parks.

For many years, we have been working to get a number of important and available properties added to Mount Diablo State Park for the public’s benefit.

Despite numerous strategic properties being available for addition to Mount Diablo State Park, not a single property has been acquired or added to the park in almost 20 years. Thankfully, that is to now change with the new law.

Another example of the progress we have been making this year in helping California State Parks’ land acquisition efforts involves a strategic inholding within Mount Diablo State Park.

In general, inholdings are acquisition priorities for California State Parks because the land, owned by another person or entity, is surrounded by state park land.

If a private landowner was a bad steward of their inholding (for example, by allowing it to be overdeveloped, overgrown with invasives, or littered with trash), that could negatively impact the state park land all around it.

On September 2nd of this year, we completed the purchase of the Balcerzak inholding within Mount Diablo State Park, a long-time acquisition priority for California State Parks.

Back on August 8, 2023, despite competition on the open market from people who wanted to buy this beautiful inholding, Save Mount Diablo was able to successfully acquire the 10-acre Balcerzak inholding property.

We purchased the land for $1.075 million via a two-year, interest-only loan to cover half the purchase price.

The Balcerzak inholding is a small knoll with slopes nestled in a rugged side canyon dropping from Knobcone Point into Curry Canyon, east of Mount Diablo State Park’s Curry Point. This inholding includes a log cabin house and other structures.

Save Mount Diablo completed the purchase of the Balcerzak inholding on September 2nd of this year by paying off the $537,500 mortgage so that our organization now owns the property free and clear.

Now that this important property is secure, we look forward to working with California State Parks so that they can efficiently acquire this inholding from us with the assistance of the new law we championed to make such acquisitions easier.

We may also have an opportunity to put a cherry on top of this year’s progress helping California State Parks advance its land acquisition efforts.

Currently, we are working to acquire another strategic inholding within Mount Diablo State Park from a private landowner by year’s end if possible.

If that happens, it would be a perfect holiday gift for our communities, including Diablo area peoples, flora, and fauna, and another way to celebrate, and give thanks for the progress we have made advancing California State Parks’ land acquisition efforts this year.