Woodlawn Beach looked pretty Monday afternoon. Tan beach grass poked through the snow on hilly dunes. A light snow added to a blanket of calm. Footprints on the boardwalk proved that I was not the only one to jump the fence and walk down to the beach.

Winter or summer, this is a nice place. The state spent $6.3 million in 1996 to create the closest swimming beach to Buffalo on this side of the border. There is a lovely, peaked-roof pavilion and a 370-foot boardwalk. People pushed the state for years to create a park here. But what once was a cause may now be a casualty.

Woodlawn is one of 41 state parks and 14 historic sites that Gov. David Paterson wants to close to fill a cavernous budget gap. Granted, we still have not figured out how to keep the beach open after bacteria-infesting rainstorms. But when it comes to local swimming beaches, we take what we can get.

The proposed closings and cutbacks would save $6.5 million. That is a lot of money to you and me, but it is barely a grain of sand on the beach of Albany’s $8.2 billion budget gap. State legislators are pounding Paterson over the proposed closings.

Hypocrites.

State legislators could save the parks simply by cutting back on one of their perks. It would save enough money to keep open Woodlawn and the rest of the threatened lot.

We have 212 state legislators, 19 of them from Western New York. Familiar names include Dale Volker, Bill Stachowski, Robin Schimminger, Sam Hoyt and George Maziarz. The 212 lawmakers each year divide among themselves about $170 million from the taxpayers— called “member items.” They hand out the money to favored groups. It amounts to a slush fund that is used to buy political support. It is just one way they rig the system to guard against getting dumped on Election Day, no matter how disgusted voters get with Albany.

The next time any legislators complain about not having the money to save parks or keep services, ask a question: Why don’t you pay for it by cutting your “member items”?

I guarantee it will shut them up.

An easy answer to the parks crisis is in legislators’ hands. If they cut their $170 million of “member items” by just 5 percent, there would be more than enough money to keep Woodlawn— and the rest of the threatened state parks —up and running. Paterson could chip in, too. He gets $30 million to hand out.

People want their parks.

At the Woodlawn Deli on Route 5, a skipping pebble from the beach, news Monday of the prospective Woodlawn closing did not go over well.

“Closing the parks is a travesty,” said Ann Doan of Hamburg. “One of the reasons my husband and I live here is the beach. We go to Woodlawn all the time.”

Behind the counter, store manager Marilynn Conrad handed a customer change for his six-pack.

“We get a lot of business during the summer from people going to the beach,” Conrad said. “People stop in, buy sandwiches, drinks, snacks. I’m sure there are some other things [the state] could cut.”

There sure are some other things the state could cut. Starting with the obscene amount—that’s $170 million, for those of you keeping score at home—of those “member item” handouts. But loosening the legislators’ grips on that taxpayer money is like trying to pry a shiny penny from the fist of a screaming 3-year-old.

That is what I was thinking, as I stood Monday in the snow at Woodlawn Beach and contemplated a summer with one less place for people to swim. State legislators are the answer. And they are the problem.