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The appended article is about growing problems within Maryland State Parks but it will seem remarkably familiar to park activists everywhere. It speaks of the kinds of issues plaguing parks everywhere... issues such as funding cuts, increasing user-fees, high camping fees (up to $40/night) --- all combined with ever-decreasing services.
There is, however, a novel idea expressed in this article: one that pushes the growing abuse of volunteerism into new territory. As most folks know, public land managers are increasingly been forced to depend upon altruistic volunteers, gain-seeking special-interest groups, delinquent youth groups, prison inmates, National Guard troops and others to perform work previously done by paid employees. Read on to discover an altogether new twist...
Scott
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Park complaints rev PR machine
By David Nitkin and Greg Barrett - Sun reporters
October 6, 2005
OAKLAND // Enticed by commercials featuring a folksy governor extolling
the pleasures of a day off in Maryland, Pennsylvanian Dave Paterson
visited a Garrett County waterfall last summer but was disgusted by the
trash he found at Swallow Falls State Park.
"Your governor has been advertising big in the Pittsburgh area, where
we are from. The catch is his family just shows up at someone's home
... and sends the common folk out to vacation in Maryland while his
family does the chores," Paterson wrote in a blistering message to a
state parks superintendent. "He needs to spend some time in his own
area to clean up! I wish he could get a copy of my e-mail, but I'm sure
he won't."
It is unclear whether Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. read the comments, but
his top aides did -- and jumped into action. Paterson's e-mail launched
a chain of responses, provided to The Sun, in which high-ranking
administration officials acknowledge a growing number of complaints
about the condition of state parks.
Years of budget and staff reductions have led to maintenance problems and reduced services, the e-mails and interviews show.
The e-mails also provide a rare glimpse of the thinking of Ehrlich's
inner circle and show how top staffers worked to turn Paterson's
complaints into a series of public relations opportunities for the
governor -- while also arranging to clean the park.
Ideas ranged from persuading workers to spend their own time on a
"volunteer" cleanup day to having Ehrlich appear at Swallow Falls at an
event coordinated by the governor's promotions squad. Paul E. Schurick,
the Ehrlich communications director, who was participating in the
e-mail exchange, called the employee volunteer cleanup idea a "PR
stunt" in one message.
Two weeks after sending the e-mail, Paterson said he received a gift
basket from the governor's office and free Maryland state park passes
for a year. A few days later, Ehrlich called him personally --
promising him that the park would be cleaned. Interviews with parks
officials show it was.
"I understand there has been 180-degree turnaround, just like the
governor promised me. He kept his word," said Paterson, 48, a manager
with a heating and air-conditioning company. "In my book, he's OK."
The governor also visited Swallow Falls a few weeks later, delivering a
check for nearly $1 million to Garrett County while standing on a
platform overlooking one of the park's waterfalls. The event received
extensive news coverage in Western Maryland.
But wider problems with the state parks system cannot be addressed as promptly, state officials and parks advocates say.
The parks division within the state Department of Natural Resources has
experienced 15 years of budget reductions, and its staffing has dropped
from 383 people to 203, including the transfer of 100 park ranger
positions to the natural resources police force, said Col. Rick Barton,
superintendent of Maryland's 49 state parks and forests and a 28-year
veteran of the agency. The former rangers still help enforce laws at
the park but no longer guide visitors or perform maintenance, Barton
said.
"We've been struggling to replace these multitask people. There is a
gap, but we will overcome it," he said. "We're understaffed, but we're
not complaining about it. It is what it is."
Barton lists his e-mail address,
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
, on
posters at state parks, and that's where Paterson sent his message July
7.
Four days later, the superintendent forwarded it to Dennis M.
Castleman, director of the state tourism office, who has overseen the
ad campaign in which the governor asks families to "Seize the Day Off"
with a day trip in Maryland -- a campaign credited with driving up
tourism numbers in the state, including parks visits.
Barton said he agreed with concerns raised by the Pittsburgh resident
about the fairness of fees charged at Maryland parks and told Castleman
he was "available to discuss ... ideas to improve the efficiency and
service at state parks."
Castleman forwarded the message to Edward B. Miller, a deputy chief of
staff to Ehrlich with responsibility for the natural resources
departments. "I fear we are facing issues at our state parks. I'm
seeing way too many complaints," Castleman wrote, in an acknowledgment
about state management problems that the Ehrlich administration almost
never makes in public.
Castleman listed four complaints. "1. Charging for entrance to our
parks. 2. Charging out of state visitors more. 3. Cleanliness of parks.
4. Competition (Surrounding states) are spending more to upgrade parks
and facilities."
With tourism on the rise, Castleman said, "we need to look at the park system."
Miller suggested in a response that perhaps Ehrlich should personally
call the Pittsburgh resident. "Also Ed B., let's discuss doing
something at this park," Miller wrote to Edward Blakely, a former GOP
advertising specialist who heads the governor's department of strategic
communications. Blakely organizes events across the state that showcase
the administration's accomplishments.
With a public-relations campaign on the verge of being launched, James
C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr., the governor's chief of staff, interjected a
dissenting voice. "I would rather have DNR fix the problem," DiPaula
wrote.
But Schurick, the governor's communications director, had other ideas.
"I think an employee volunteer clean-up campaign is in order," he wrote
in the e-mail exchange. "I'll join the crew for a day in the park.
[Great] PR stunt: DNR employees pitch in to clean the parks."
Within a couple of days, volunteers helped clean up the park, officials
said. The garbage was an aberration, said Barton, the superintendent,
the result of heavy rains that caused streams to overflow. Receding
water left rubbish behind.
The park appears to have remained in good condition since then. On a
recent visit, rocks and trails were clean, and visitors were happy.
"I think they are doing a really nice job of maintaining the [natural]
integrity of the park," said Clarke McCallister, 43, a CSX locomotive
engineer and amateur photographer who was snapping pictures of the
streams and waterfalls on a recent afternoon.
McCallister said that in hundreds of photographs, he has never seen anything more than a stray cigarette butt.
Castleman, the tourism chief, played down the complaints he has been
receiving when asked about his e-mail. He said he got "two or three
comments" about entrance fees and the additional money charged to
out-of-state visitors. The park entrance fee is $2 per vehicle for
Maryland cars and trucks and $3 for out-of-state vehicles.
But Tim Casey, an executive with McCormick Inc. and vice president of
Friends of the Maryland State Forests and Parks, a citizens advocacy
group, said the condition of state parks is "dismal."
With budgets being cut, parks have increased entrance and camping fees
and have turned trail maintenance and other tasks over to volunteers,
he said. They are also reducing hours of operation. State budget
documents show that natural resources officials warned legislative
analysts about service reductions earlier this year.
"We have some of the highest day-use camping [charges] and highest fees
on the East Coast," Casey said. "You raise it to a certain level and it
becomes unfair, and people can't afford it."
Internal data from Maryland officials show that Delaware, Pennsylvania
and Virginia do not charge entrance fees at state parks, although
Virginia imposes a parking charge, Casey said. Campsites that are free
in Pennsylvania and cost $29 in Delaware and $31 in Virginia are up to
$40 in Maryland, he said.
Barton said state parks needed to do more with less.
"We are certainly facing our challenges with the evolution, but that is
certainly the vision -- a smaller, leaner permanent workforce with
seasonal help," he said. "I know that sounds like I am putting spray
paint over garbage to some people. But we just are not going to get a
larger permanent work force when you compare park positions to homeland
security and public health and education and the other things that
government must do."
Ehrlich scheduled several stops in Western Maryland during his August
visit -- a trip that Blakely also made. He rolled into Oakland in a
horse-drawn carriage to the cheers of well-wishers, according to a
newspaper account of the trip.
He later went to Swallow Falls -- which has not had its own full-time
manager for 18 months -- where he presented county officials with a
$956,863 check, the money coming from state timber harvests and camping
fees.
"Every time I visit Western Maryland, particularly one of the state's
forests or parks, I am reminded of the vital role that our natural
resources play in the area's economy and tourism," the governor said in
a release he issued that day.
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