Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne should pull out his veto stamp again.

Last year, Republican Kempthorne vetoed eight bills in a game of brinkmanship with the Legislature to persuade lawmakers to approve his plan for a $1.2 billion road construction program. The “Connecting Idaho” legislation was languishing until Kempthorne played hardball.

In January, the governor proposed another ambitious program that deserved funding in a year when Idaho was savoring a $214 million surplus. Kempthorne recommended that legislators appropriate $34 million for renovations and additions to the state park system, including a badly needed $3.2 million face-lift for Heyburn State Park.

Now, with the 2006 session winding down and surplus revenue dwindling, Kempthorne, commendably, has gone on the offensive to save his parks proposal. A case can be made that the entire amount isn’t needed this year, particularly the $4.8 million for a new park at an undesignated site in eastern Idaho. But lawmakers will be irresponsible if they budget just $8 million to $10 million for the parks initiative. Kempthorne should wield his veto stamp again if legislators fail to understand that it’s vital to fix rundown parks in years with huge surpluses.

A surplus, after all, means that a governmental entity has overtaxed its constituents. In this case, the state of Idaho has overtaxed residents by $214 million. Much of that amount has been appropriated to worthy causes already, including a school facilities package that’ll cost about $30 million and a $4.2 million tax break for low-income seniors. However, legislators have dismissed out of hand Kempthorne’s $63 million proposal to give $50 in energy assistance to every qualified man, woman and child in the state. The next best thing to a refund is to use part of the surplus to upgrade parks enjoyed by the public.

In a recent newspaper commentary, Kempthorne zeroed in on the crux of the matter: “Few chances arise for states to invest in the majesty of their parks. Only when the circumstances are just right – typically when the economy is strong and there’s money in the bank – can a state afford to invest in its recreation infrastructure. … We now have a narrow window of opportunity to make that once-in-a generation investment in our state park system.”

Heyburn Park, 40 miles south of Coeur d’Alene on Lake Chatcolet, is a case in point. Once mentioned in the same breath as Yellowstone and Yosemite for national park status, Heyburn is showing its age. At a time when the park is experiencing intense public interest as a result of being near one end of the 72-mile Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, the facilities were described in a Jan. 18 Spokesman-Review article as “musty and mossy” and cabin logs as crumbling and rotting.

Only foolish property owners would allow gems like Heyburn to deteriorate when they have money to fix them.