National Park Service: Business as Usual: The National Park Service Misled the Public and News Media

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Business as Usual: The National Park Service Misled the Public and News Media

As new austerity measures take shape in terms of Federal budget cuts including for the National Park Service ("NPS"), it is instructive to review how the NPS previously acted in 2004 during previous rounds of budget cuts.

In 2004, the National Park Service ("NPS") engaged in a pattern of misrepresentation, deception, and obfuscation strikingly similar to the activities in which NPS now engages. The efforts at deception were most evident in the NPS Northeast Region, which includes Independence National Historical Park, a unit of the National Park Service, in which repeated violations of Congressional mandates, fair business practices, and Constitutional rights have occurred.

On February 20, 2004, Chrysandra Walter, NPS Deputy Director of the Northeast Region (Dennis Reidenbach, former Superintendent of Independence National Historical Park, would later become Regional Director for the NPS Northeast Region), sent a memo to NPS Superintendents in the NE region regarding budget cuts which advised them with guidance from Randy Jones, NPS Deputy Director:

"If you think that some of your specific plans will cause a public or political controversy, Marie [Rust, NPS Regional Director NE] and I need to know which ones are likely to end up in the media or result in a congressional inquiry…Randy [Jones, NPS Deputy Director] felt that the issuance of a press release was the most problematic… He suggested that if you feel you must inform the public… not to directly indicate that ‘this is a cut’ in comparison to last year’s operation… We all agreed to use the terminology of ‘service level adjustment’ due to fiscal restraints as a means of describing what action we are taking.” (emphasis added)

This NPS memo for the Northeast Region showed that NPS personnel had actively attempted to spin and mask National Park budget cuts in a way that prevented the public and the media from realizing the truth. The evident effort to deceive the public became more pronounced when comparing the NPS Northeast Region memo to the one directed towards the NPS Midwest Region. In the NPS Midwest Region memo, the focus was on trying to streamline budgets so as "to collectively use the 'cards dealt to us [NPS]' for the best overall advantage in preserving and protecting the resources of the National Park System." The goal of the Midwest memo was clear:

"In these tough times, building a solid, reasonable, and defensible rationale for what we choose not to do allows us to direct our limited resources to our core mission of protecting park resources and providing for visitor understanding and enjoyment."

Unlike the memo from the NPS Northeast Region, the NPS Midwest Region memo did not attempt to mislead the public or media, or to engage in political posturing and gamesmanship.

On March 18, 2004, the Associated Press helped to break the news of the NPS deception, when it reported, "National parks told to cut services quietly." The article detailed the public relations ploys orchestrated by the NPS to prevent the media and the public from learning of recent budget cuts. As the article noted:

"National Park Service superintendents are being told to cut back on services possibly even closing small, historic sites a couple of days a week or shuttering visitor centers on federal holidays without letting on they are making cuts."

The Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees exposed the NPS's cover-up. Dennis K. Huffman, Spokesperson for the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, spoke out against the budget cuts and the secrecy surrounding them. Mr. Huffman revealed the tactics used by the NPS:

"So - we find an unfortunate - what you might even call an Orwellian - situation in which park superintendents were coached by NPS to mislead the news media about the service cuts in order to avoid "political controversy." (emphasis added; non-substantive changes to capitalization and grammar have been made to the original quotation)

Mr. Huffman continued:

"And make no mistake about it: there is a chill over the National Park Service today. It truly is a sad day for America's National Parks when park superintendents have to make 'stealth' cuts in visitor services - and then either remain silent or even mislead taxpayers about the cuts in order to save their own hides - their jobs." (emphasis added)

Jeff McFarland, Executive Director of the Association of National Park Rangers, further commented on the implications of the memo and the state of the NPS, when he described the conditions of the NPS as one in which "staffing shortages are crippling the parks." Mr. McFarland continued:

"Now I would like to discuss how the [National] park service is dealing with this dire situation. In a word, they’re telling the public, the media, and the Congress that everything’s fine, that promises are being kept, and don’t look too closely. In the process, employees are expected to present information to the public and the media in a manner than closely reflects current administration policy rather than actual needs. The recent removal of the Chief of the U.S. Park Police sent a clear message to park superintendents—you may lose your job for telling the truth about park budgets. As stewards of many of our nation’s most precious natural and cultural resources, we believe that national parks and the American people deserve better than this." (emphasis added; non-substantive changes to capitalization and grammar have been made to Mr. McFarland's original quotations)

It seems that the NPS went to considerable lengths to prevent further exploration into this issue. In fact, when documents were requested through the Freedom of Information Act from the NPS Northeast Region of the National Park Service regarding Ms. Walter's memo, Mr. Reidenbach, replied, "We have conducted a thorough search of our files and were unable to locate any records responsive to your request." (Note: for the record, most of the documents which are included herein were located through other non-NPS Web sites).

Obfuscation, misrepresentation, misdirection? Business as usual for the Northeast Region of the National Park Service.

---------

Exhibits:

*Memo from Chrysandra Walter, Deputy Director of the Northeast Region, National Park Service, to Northeast Region NPS Superintendents, February 20, 2004 (with emphasis added).

*Memo to Midwest Region NPS Superintendents, March 1, 2004.

*News Release, "NPS Retirees: Internal Memos Reveal Public to be Misled on Planned Park Cuts, Even as Push for More Visitors Launched," March 17, 2004.

*Statement of Dennis K. Huffman, Spokesperson, Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, March 17, 2004.

*Statement of Jeff McFarland, Executive Director, Association of National Park Rangers, March 17, 2004.

*Letter from the National Park Service in response to Freedom of Information Act request, April 21, 2009.

Background on The Constitutional’s disputes with the NPS and Independence Visitor Center

The Constitutional Walking Tour of Philadelphia (“The Constitutional”) offers guided walking tours of the Independence National Historical Park area by providing a primary overview of Independence Park and visiting more than 20 of Independence Park’s most historic sites including the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Carpenters’ Hall, Declaration House, etc.

From 2005 to 2010, the Independence Visitor Center Corporation sold tickets for The Constitutional’s various tours only at the IVC’s main information and sales desk. The IVCC has received a 20.0% (twenty percent) sales commission on each ticket that it has sold for The Constitutional (ranging on average in gross price from $12.50 to $17.50). Since 2005, The Constitutional has requested to also license a dedicated ticket sales booth from the National Park Service and IVCC on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms commensurate with Ride the Ducks and Philadelphia Trolley Works, for example. Additionally, since 2005, The Constitutional has requested to also license marketing opportunities and commercial use authorizations from the National Park Service and IVCC on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

The Independence Visitor Center (“IVC”) is owned and operated by the United States of America - National Park Service (“NPS”), which then sub-contracts with the Independence Visitor Center Corporation (“IVCC”), a taxpayer supported public charity, to manage the IVC.

The IVCC and NPS have preferenced third parties including Ride the Ducks and Philadelphia Trolley Works, and the IVCC and NPS have discriminated against The Constitutional Walking Tour. The National Park Service has enabled the creation of this unfair business environment. The National Park Service and the IVCC have ignored and circumvented Federal management and concessions laws for the sale of goods and services at Independence National Historical Park that require open, transparent, competitive and appealable processes awarding concessions contracts for the sale of goods and services including tours.

To facilitate the administration of the National Park Service System, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, acting through the NPS, is authorized under the National Park Service Organic Act (“Organic Act”) to carry out twelve categories of activities, none of which include transferring administrative responsibility to a private party [i.e., IVCC] or engaging in cooperative administration with a private party [i.e., IVCC]. 16 U.S.C. § 1a-2(a)–(l). Rather than grant the NPS discretion in its dealings with park concessioners, Congress established “carefully controlled safeguards against unregulated and indiscriminate use” of the parks in the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998 (“Management Act”), which governs all national park public accommodations, facilities, and services. 16 U.S.C. § 5951 et seq.; see also 36 C.F.R. Part 51.2 (“policy underlying concessions contracts”). The safeguards are not limited to nationwide policy: Congress also manages the parks with significant visitor traffic on a park-by-park basis. See, e.g., 16 U.S.C. §§ 21–40c (Yellowstone), §§ 91–110d (Mount Rainier), §§ 212–218a (Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace), and §§ 410z–410z-5 (Boston National). One of the dozens of national parks managed by specific statutes is Independence National Historical Park (“INHP”). 16 U.S.C. §407m–407s. As such, compliance here going forward would require the NPS, first, to reassume from the private IVCC the NPS’s duties “to administer, operate, manage, lease, and maintain” properties at INHP pursuant to 16 U.S.C. § 407s; second, to award “all proposed concessions contracts … through a competitive selection process” pursuant to 16 U.S.C. § 5952; and, third, to issue commercial use authorizations in a rational manner pursuant to a reasonable interpretation of 16 U.S.C. § 5966(c).

The IVCC and NPS have arbitrarily and randomly selected business partners in a non-competitive and clandestine manner; as such, the actions of the NPS and IVCC have from an economics perspective stifled competition, innovation and consumer choice. Ultimately the IVCC’s actions have enabled prices to increase for its preferred vendors to strengthen the for-profits’ financial performance. Visitors to Philadelphia will be better served when the IVCC’s management, manners and methods are fundamentally changed. This would include having the National Park Service abide by Federal concessions management laws. Specifically, this will entail only having the NPS award concessions sales contracts and not having the IVCC involved in any of the selecting, awarding, contracting and managing of Independence Park’s third party concessions, including inside the Independence Visitor Center. This is the model that is practiced in virtually every other of the 390 (three hundred ninety) National Park Service units across the United States (in 49 states) including at Yosemite, Yellowstone, Statue of Liberty, etc. Additionally, visitors and all stakeholders will be better served once the operation of the taxpayer funded IVCC is totally transparent and accountable. While part of the issue centers on a publicly funded charity competing against the private sector (i.e., by offering guided tours and services), it more so has to do with the manner in which the IVCC and NPS operate and discriminate against third party concessionaires, tour operators and vendors in a random and arbitrary fashion (i.e., with the licensing and leasing ticket sales kiosks by the IVCC to third party companies, for example).