Gov. Butch Otter has scheduled a press conference for Friday at 11 a.m. with Nancy Merrill, director of the state Department of Parks & Recreation, for "an important announcement about Parks and Recreation management." Otter's budget proposal for next year included a "conceptual" proposal to eliminate the department, cut dozens of positions, eliminate most state funding and merge it into the Department of Lands. Otter said, however, that he'd be open to other options. After he floated his proposal, attention focused on the conditions by which Idaho acquired landmark Harriman State Park - that it establish a professional parks department to manage it and other Idaho parks. That's how Idaho got its parks department in 1965. Ending that could mean losing Harriman.

---

---