Strapped Counties Snap Up Parkland

The Washington Post reports:

In the boggy wilderness beside a log cabin on the eastern edge of Montgomery County, crayfish build runny mud towers, and green bursts of ground pine spring from the forest floor.

And that's the way things will stay, thanks in part to the recession.

Montgomery officials agreed last month to buy the area, a 53-acre ecological refuge, at a deep discount from a developer who had long turned away government suitors. They are paying $8.75 million, roughly half of the $16.35 million price appraised in December.

And officials in Virginia last month were able to knock $2 million off what they paid for 1,100 acres of forested waterfront land in Stafford County. The area, known as the Crow's Nest, is near the spot where Pocahontas was said to have been abducted by Jamestown settlers.

Some governments in the Washington area are experiencing an upside to the economic downturn: cheaper parkland. They are trying to take advantage of the bad real estate market to negotiate deals.

These governmental bodies yell poverty , but they are buying land! What an outrage.