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This week, President Bush held a media event at Shenandoah National Park. He used the opportunity to distract attention from his horrendous budget proposal and to, instead, touted both his National Parks Centennial Initiative and his plan to provide additional funding to the National Park Service.
 Several journalists as well at the National Parks Conservation Association took the President's bait, hook, line and sinker. One veteran New York Times reporter who should have known better, went so far as to compare President Bush to Teddy Roosevelt. Two days later, the New York Times followed up with an editorial in which they made it perfectly clear that no such comparison was warranted.
Fortunately, the nation's most credible National Parks organization, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees was not fooled. CNPSR saw the hook and has, in the appended article from today's press, drawn attention to it.
Unfortunately, this outstanding article did not run in the New York Times. It's possible that it may only be read by a small, local, audience. Your help in sharing this important information would therefore be much appreciated.
Scott
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February 11, 2007
Bush park plan draws mixed views
Phil Bloom / Fort Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette
When Bill Wade heard President Bush announce funding plans for the
National Park Service earlier this week, he didn't perform celebratory
handstands.
"Mixed, to put it in the best light," Wade said, describing his
reaction to the $2.4 billion budget proposal and the proposed National
Parks Centennial Initiative.
Wade is executive council chairman of the Coalition of National Park
Service Retirees, a 500-member organization with a combined 14,000
years of experience as former employees of the agency tasked with
managing and protecting public places with such varied landscapes as
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Great Smoky Mountains, the
Everglades and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Wade, who now resides in Arizona, spent 34 years in the National Park
Service, following in the footsteps of his father, who was a career
park ranger.
So, he speaks with insight and candor when it comes to assessing Bush's
proposal, which includes a $230 million increase in park operations
funding.
"We were certainly pleased to see the focus on the park operations
needs because we've been saying for the last three or four years that
parks haven' t been able to operate adequately," Wade said. "Staffing
has been going down, visitor services have been going down, and keeping
up with maintenance has been going down. This at least provides some
remedy for that, and for that we're pleased."
But, he said, there's more to it than meets the eye.
"It does take away from other programs in order to do that, including
construction (funding)," Wade said. "So it's not all new money, and
that on the surface is troubling. It's just one of those things that
the public doesn't always see. It's sort of a 'robbing Peter to pay
Paul' situation."
What bothers Wade even more is the aspect of Bush's "Centennial
Initiative" that calls on the private sector to contribute $100 million
annually in advance of the Park Service's 100th anniversary celebration
in 2016. Bush is asking Congress to match that contribution with
another $100 million each year.
"We're not in favor in any way, shape or form of increasing
privatization of National Parks," Wade said. "The more private money
that is sought and put into the operation of parks, the less public the
parks are and the more difficulty there is down the road to juggle
special interests and commercial interests that typically come along
with private money."
Wade says it's a philosophical question that needs to be answered by
the American public, which may only see National Parks as destinations
and not as sound economic investments.
According to a recent research report from the National Parks
Conservation Association, the National Parks system generates
approximately four times the value of its cost to taxpayers. The report
calls the park system an economic asset at risk.
"The American public ultimately has to figure out if they want National
Parks predominately run from public money through appropriations (by
Congress) or see it go more and more to privatization," Wade said.
"That's simply an issue of priorities."
Phil Bloom has been outdoors editor for The
Journal Gazette since 1991. He can be reached by e-mail at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
; phone, 461-8257; or fax 461-8648. To discuss this
column, go to the "Phil Bloom" topic of "The Board" at
www.journalgazette.net
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- Privatization 
