open forum w/ Interior Secretary last night

[Gary_Yngve]

We went to the open forum at Town Hall w/ the Secretary of the Dept of Interior and Director of NPS last night. Quite an interesting experience.

 

First, some good news -- there's an awesome-looking budget for the NPS, ramping up from now to their centennial in 2016.

 

Other tidbits:

-My god, politicians pander and brown-nose till their brown-faced. Assistants would read statements from congressmen to the Secretary regretting they couldn't attend but they thank him for coming here and they value anything he do for them and thank him for what he's already done... like five minutes worth of zero substance, just to say, welcome to town, bro.

-The Secretary was an active listener and taking notes throughout the night, but his face seemed especially tense/poker-faced when global warming came up (as how it could affect the parks).

-Much of the talk last night was from the historical side, not the wilderness side. Lots of folks interested in their pet projects. One particularly cool one is that Japanese internment camps becoming historical sites.

-Various special interest groups wanted their say. Horseback folks (who do much trail maintenance) had issues with the new regulations requiring feed to be certified as not having weeds. Their problem is that feed is not sold in WA. The orienteering folks want courses established in Natl Parks. Some cleanup/maintenance crews want it to be easier to get approval for helicopters/machinery.

-There's some concern about projects just targeting visitor centers and frontpieces, not the park as a whole.

-Lots of folks want gateway communities to be considered as major stakeholders.

-Getting children into the parks and getting them experiencing nature instead of Nintendo seems to be #1 priority.

-If you want to speak at one of these gigs, you need to show up early.

 

You can comment on the NPS plans here:

 

http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?parkID=442&projectID=17892&documentId=18372

 

[catbirdseat]

The orienteering folks want courses established in Natl Parks.

What does that mean? I thought the point of orienteering was finding your way through wild terrain. Build a course and soon you'll just be following a trail. Aren't the courses completely different for each event?

[Gary_Yngve]

I don't know how it works for them. Or if they're running into issues with party sizes. But they were there, selling their case.