Kevin- I think that people who aren't as familiar with the National Park Service as many of us who subscribe here need to realize that it has always been grossly underfunded, especially given the depth and expanse of its mission. Like the NPS personnel that you quoted, the public gets a bargain because of the many public employees who could make more in the private sector but accept less because of their commitment to the mission . Other than that point, I can't add anything to what you and Jerry have set forth.
The American public overwhelmingly rate our National Parks as national treasures, and fully appreciated the thousands of NPS employees lending their expertise and passion for their r├┤le as interpreters and guardians of these precious resources. How can there NOT be massive BLOWBACK to the Elno savaging of the NPS, when the public can WITNESS it with their own eyes - not through the eyes of FoxNews,or tRump, or fecking Musk, but through personal experience?
Days of reckoning - they's a-coming, people, bank it.
I'm glad that you have inserted this important point about chronic, gross underfunding, and glad that Kevin has seconded your point.
In our mostly lost struggle to see Fort Monroe (at Point Comfort, the 1619 place) respected with sufficient NPS involvement, the main argument against us was the claim of public financial impracticality. So for us, it was ironic and galling to contrast that mega-canard with Ken Burns's point that although proposals for national parks elsewhere have regularly drawn local opposition based on supposed financial impracticality, the obstructive complainers have regularly ended up gladdened after their communities have drawn prosperity from new national parks that the obstructors had opposed.
But that problem now has to be tabled for a while, I guess. Trying to build a bigger fleet is less important than preventing the scuttling of the present one.
The NPS has, indeed, been underfunded for decades, which makes this latest round of layoffs so deeply disturbing. I fear we haven't seen the end of it.
I have nothing to add, Jerry. Well said.
Kevin- I think that people who aren't as familiar with the National Park Service as many of us who subscribe here need to realize that it has always been grossly underfunded, especially given the depth and expanse of its mission. Like the NPS personnel that you quoted, the public gets a bargain because of the many public employees who could make more in the private sector but accept less because of their commitment to the mission . Other than that point, I can't add anything to what you and Jerry have set forth.
The American public overwhelmingly rate our National Parks as national treasures, and fully appreciated the thousands of NPS employees lending their expertise and passion for their r├┤le as interpreters and guardians of these precious resources. How can there NOT be massive BLOWBACK to the Elno savaging of the NPS, when the public can WITNESS it with their own eyes - not through the eyes of FoxNews,or tRump, or fecking Musk, but through personal experience?
Days of reckoning - they's a-coming, people, bank it.
I'm glad that you have inserted this important point about chronic, gross underfunding, and glad that Kevin has seconded your point.
In our mostly lost struggle to see Fort Monroe (at Point Comfort, the 1619 place) respected with sufficient NPS involvement, the main argument against us was the claim of public financial impracticality. So for us, it was ironic and galling to contrast that mega-canard with Ken Burns's point that although proposals for national parks elsewhere have regularly drawn local opposition based on supposed financial impracticality, the obstructive complainers have regularly ended up gladdened after their communities have drawn prosperity from new national parks that the obstructors had opposed.
But that problem now has to be tabled for a while, I guess. Trying to build a bigger fleet is less important than preventing the scuttling of the present one.
The NPS has, indeed, been underfunded for decades, which makes this latest round of layoffs so deeply disturbing. I fear we haven't seen the end of it.