Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. Jim Burnett photo.
With the December 5 deadline approaching for the public to comment on proposals to increase entrance fees at Yellowstone National Park, a major newspaper in Montana has weighed in on the idea. In an editorial on November 17, the Billings Gazette endorsed the park's proposal, urging readers to "... speak up. Tell the NPS to proceed with the fee increases..."
The editorial, titled "The biggest bargain on Yellowstone vacations," asks "How many vacation destinations haven’t had a price increase in nine years? Besides Yellowstone National Park?"
Citing a proposal to raise entrance fees into Yellowstone by $5 per vehicle, the editorial notes:
Eighty percent of the visitors’ dollars would stay in the park where the admission was purchased. By law, money from entrance fees can only be used for things that benefit visitors, such as operating visitor centers, cleaning restrooms, maintaining trails, roads and board walks, and hiring seasonal rangers to provide safety patrols, guided hikes and visitor programs.
Considering inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index, the proposed park entrance fee increases are roughly equivalent to what the fees would be in 2015 if they had been adjusted annually for inflation over the previous nine years.
Our region of Montana and Wyoming has extra good reasons to support the plan to boost park entrance revenues. Yellowstone is the crown jewel of the region’s thriving tourist industry...
That economic activity includes supporting thousands of private sector jobs in Montana and Wyoming. The 3.4 million people who visited Yellowstone between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31 filled hotels and restaurants, purchased the bulk of fuel sold at Montana and Wyoming gas stations this summer, shopped, drank, gambled, rented vehicles and generally spread their wealth far beyond the park boundaries.
Would the higher fees be counterproductive in terms of visitation? The paper doesn't think so.
The proposed entrance fee increases won’t deter visitors. Nobody will cancel their plans to visit Yellowstone because of these fees. At $30 for a three-day admission per vehicle, the proposed new park entrance fee will still be the cheapest item on a Yellowstone vacation. A family of four could spend more than $30 for a single lunch at an eatery inside or outside the park. A night of summer lodging in gateway communities can easily run $200.
It makes sense to tap user fees to maintain America’s most beloved park. This year, Yellowstone had about $4 million from current entrance fees to help upgrade campgrounds, improve accessibility for people with disabilities, repair utilities and do other projects that benefit visitors.
It’s certainly in the best interest of the region’s businesses to have the park invest in visitor services. The industry depends on visitors from across the nation and around the world having a good experience so they will stay in the area, tell their friends about it and come back again.
Now is the time to speak up. Tell the NPS to proceed with the fee increases and invest those revenues in the roads, trails, restrooms and visitor activities that make a Yellowstone vacation safe and fun.
Let’s boost revenue in time to spruce up the park for the NPS centennial in 2016 when there’s likely to be a surge in national park vacations.
You may agree or disagree with the Gazette's opinion, and you still have until December 5 to get your thoughts to the park. There's been some criticism for the park's approach for collecting public feedback—no comments are being accepted via e-mail, fax or an NPS website, although they can be submitted via U. S. Mail, or in person at a series of public meetings that have now been completed.
The park staff has not offered their rationale for this rather old-school approach for comments, so you're left to draw your own conclusions. That said, input on this question is not being restricted to local residents, as some have complained. If you're really interested in this issue, it takes little more time to compose your comment on your computer, hit print, stick your letter in an envelope, and drop it in the mail that it does to compose and send the identical response on-line.
All comments must be received by midnight MST on Friday, December 5th, 2014. They can be mailed to: Management Assistant Office, Attn: Entrance Fee Proposal, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY, 82190.
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Comments
There's been some criticism for the park's approach for collecting public feedback—no comments are being accepted via e-mail, fax or an NPS website, although they can be submitted via U. S. Mail, or in person at a series of public meetings that have now been completed
That's because the NPS doesn't care about your opinion. The fees are predetermined. They are just checking a bs box for public and civic engagement. Another sham from the scandal ridden NPS.
If the NPS follows the same approach with Yellowstone that they did in the Smokies, the public meeting comments will be absolutely meaningless. They kept no record of comments, and arguably worse, they did not allow those in attendance to share their thoughts with the assembled individuals. Instead, attendees were met by NPS personnel and sort of shuttled or cordoned off in small groups and given the impression their voices meant something.
However, subsequent FOIA requests revealed that there was no formal compilation or recording of public input whatsoever. In other words, the "hearings" were a sham because nobody from the NPS truly listened or heeded what attendees had to say.
Jim Casada.
I'm not shocked to see the local papers outside of Yellowstone in favor of the increase. When I was there in August, all the front country campgrounds had a "full" sign on it. Yellowstone and the Tetons have seen a steady increase in visitation over the years, and I doubt 5.00 even puts a dent in that. Obviously the small local media markets realize tourism is their main bread and butter in that region.
I think I have my own theory on why they are asking for an old school approach. I could see how making people go the old fashioned route eliminates those electronic letter responses from NGO's. It also lessons the chance of the "vote early, vote often" phenomenon which can occur with electronic commenting, as one person can submit 50 different comments under a fake pseudonym. Not a single day goes by where some organization is asking people on social media to submit a canned electronic comment through a link on their NGO website to senators or organizations like the NPS. All one has to do is sumbit a canned response with just their name attached and I'm sure YNP has recieved those comments in mass while dealing wih the wolf and buffalo issues. Weeding through that probably wastes a lot of time and money. I'm not saying this is perfect either because paper has it's own issues.
NPS commenting periods aren't always about "popular vote" either, as some people here tend to misconstrue this process in their misinterpretation of the organic act.
And Mr Casada, be a man this time if you wish to respond to what I say and do it here on this page, instead of running to one of your blogs and misconstruing what I say. May want to re-read what I said here two or three times, before you misinterpret it this time.
Requiring snail mail comments is just another way of saying "we don't want to go to the trouble of reviewing a lot of feedback". This is 2014 and I don't know of another organization that refuses to consider feedback submitted electronically.
Maybe with a portion of the fee increment they can fund a new online electronic feedback evaluation system.
If what the naysayers allude is true, it is far from unique to the NPS, and doesn't make the NPS in more general a nefarious super villain.
My first ever encounter with political involvement was in the late 1970's at a county council meeting arguing against their proposal to short cut the process for eminent domain to support some development projects the council members were invested in. Right now here in Alaska we have the outgoing Republican governor trying to shove through a road to nowhere [except for being close to mines operated by moneyed interests] where the public meetings have been nearly universally against the road project.
This is one of the common ways that these bureaucratic systems works. I don't endorse it being that way, I argue against it being that way, but it happens all over the place. What has to happen is to dismantle it each and every time. Laborious, exhausting, frustrating, but it is what you have to do, more than just rail against the overwhelming evil of it all.
Baring interference from some heavy hitters in Congress, this proposed fee increase is probably a done deal (and Congress, after all, seems to love these fees because fee revenue offers an excuse for politicians to avoid adquately funding the parks with tax dollars.)
That said, I personally don't have any problem for any public review process with the requirement to send in comments via snail mail. As mentioned above, why is that such a burden? For anyone who truly cares about an issue, the 50 cents for postage shouldn't be a burden - unless you're an organization that is trying to flood the "system" with mass-produced, cut and paste pseudo-comments. There's probably even some minor cost savings for the agency in snail mail comments, since they don't have the staff time and expense of downloading and printing paper copies of electronic submissions.
I doubt the NPS or many other organizations has reached the point where paperless review of such comments would pass muster by groups who want to challenge the "results," as evidenced by the above comment complaining about a lack of proper compilation or recording of comments on another issue.
If this increase is likely a done deal, the public comment process becomes one of those politically-correct steps that serves little purpose, so the park might as well make it as easy as possible from their standpoint to "receive, record and document."
Not long ago, I was talking with a member of the Utah legislature who is one of the trustworthy ones. (I think -- or hope . . . .)
He was telling of the problem caused by mass emailings drummed up by special interests of various kinds. All sorts of organizations from all sides of the political spectrum send emails to members asking them to "sign a petition" for or against whatever they are for or against.
Dutiful members click their mice a few times and send off another signature to oppose or support whatever the cause may be. The problem is that probably 80% of the clickers have no real idea what they just clicked for or against.
He told of a proposal for a new highway in Utah that launched online petition drives by two opposing groups. Those produced over 900,000 petition signatures both for and against. They came from all over the world -- including, he said, two from Tasmania.
His point was that when things like that happen, any effort to actually discern public sentiments become totally meaningless. I'm thinking there may very well be some real wisdom behind the NPS turning off this kind of thing. If they do, and only people who really care and have made an effort to actually become informed respond, won't that be better?
The real question here is why capture public comments at all. They obviously have no bearing on agency decisions. By only allowing snail mail comments, the NPS has further minimized the likelihood of folks paying to have their voice heard by the NPS. A deft manipulation by the NPS. Just another way of these bureaucrats saying, "Now go away, we know what is best for you, so quit bothering us."
This is excerpted directly from the NPS response to a group challenging the backcountry fee in the Smokies.
Park staff did not hide the fact that there was opposition to the
BCF (backcountry fee) – the results of public scoping were described in the BCF implementation plan. SER and
WASO decision-makers were aware of the opposition, but ultimately, they decided to approve the
BCF.
The irony that shouldn't be overlooked in how Yellowstone officials are soliciting comments is that their decision not to allow email or on-line comments comes as the National Park Service is trying to be "relevant" to younger generations and as park staff considers a $30 million fiber optic network to enhance connectivity in the park.
Kurt as far as I can tell, Yellowstone is the only one that seems to be doing this. Many of the other parks still have their fee proposals open to electronic comments. I do think that when organizations spam the comments they are doing a disservice. Reminds me of the scene in Gangs of NY where Daniel Day Lewis's character is shaving people to get them to look different so they can return to the polls to "vote early, and often". And plus, it's not like these comments are a "vote". It's not like you are voting on a state constitutional ammendment, like some here tend to misconstrue this process. It's simply kicking ideas into the park service on a proposal. That's it.
If that is the reason Yellowstone decided to pull this to having comments only sent via a letter mailed in to the park service, it would obviously cut down the chance of the NGO spammers trumping up their numbers. But, that is IF that is the reason.
So, what is the solution? If one has had a website built, or has worked in software/web development, one would realize that having a user based system is not exactly cheap or easy to manage. Having a simple form generate an email response is rather simple (which is already being done on the NPS park planning sites from what I can tell), but once you have a user name login, with password, and trying to make sure that the person submitting the comments is legitimate so that they are not submitting comments multiple times under different accounts to trump up "opposition" - well that becomes a much bigger task to manage with the IT departments. That process also takes that thing called time and money, which then has to be a part of the park budgets, which of course is appropriated by congress. Or it has to be funded by other means. The parks seems to allow anonymous comments since you don't have to fill out your name, but I question if that is even effective. Having 9000 canned email responses on the server that were sent from one specific NGO website isn't exactly a scientific measurement of how the public truly feels about an issue in my opinion, because that can be very slanted, and "rigged".
This is the problem I see with electronric voting too. There should be some sort of accountability with those that supply the comments. And that's if this process even matters like some state. But sometimes I do think the comments and public approval/disapproval does bare some teeth. I look at the fact that Bison in Yellowstone are now given to tribes as one of those small victories that many people wanted to see. They have had a comment period on this issue for some time now, and the park service seems to be more open to sending the bison to other places instead instead of doing a full on "cull". I do think public comments with opposition or approval holds some weight.