President Obama has been asked to fire National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis if the director does not resign/NPS
Editor's note: This updates the story to mention that a petition drive calling for Director Jarvis' removal has been started.
National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, who has had to deal with his own ethical transgressions and a range of misconduct issues across the National Park System during this, the Park Service's centennial year, should resign or be fired, a member of Congress has told President Obama.
Additionally, a petition has been launched on We The People, a website that reaches out to the White House, calling for the director's termination.
Congressman Jody Hice, a Republican from Georgia, wrote the president last week asking that Director Jarvis be asked to resign. In the letter (attached) the congressman cited the director's run-in with the Interior Department's Ethics Office for not clearing a book he wrote for a Park Service contractor, the well-publicized case of long-running sexual harassment in Grand Canyon National Park, and another case of sexual misconduct at Canaveral National Seashore.
"Regrettably, in these cases -- and others -- the proper form of discipline was not pursued," Rep. Hice wrote. "In the case of Director Jarvis' book deal, the only punishment he faced was that he was stripped of his authority to implement the Park Service's Ethic's Program and is required to attend monthly ethics training courses for the remainder of his tenure. Others have either been transferred out of their positions or have been allowed to retire without facing the punishment that fits the misconduct.
"These are just some of the ethical failures and misconduct commited by employees of the National Park Service and the lack of discipline they have faced. Ultimately, Director Jarvis must be held accountable for these actions. Therefore Mr. President, I believe that the time has come for you to call on Director Jarvis to tender his resignation as the Director of the National Park Service. Should he choose not to resign, I believe that you must relieve him of his duties immediately."
This past Tuesday a petition drive calling for Director Jarvis' removal was launched on We The People. If 100,000 people sign the petition by July 21, the White House will respond to the request, according to the website. The petition, created by "A.B.," states:
As the nation celebrates the National Park Service centennial, we deserve a director who will uphold the integrity of the agency’s mission and values. We urge you to remove Director Jonathan Jarvis.
Jarvis has failed to address numerous and pervasive sexual harassment and hostile work environment violations.
He lied to the Secretary of the Interior and intentionally bypassed the agency’s Ethics Office in order to write an unsanctioned book.
He has failed to discipline park service employees who deliberately omitted and misrepresented scientific data.
And he is pushing for policy changes that would give corporate donors unprecedented influence over park managers and National Park Service decisions.
We and the Park Service cannot wait. Jarvis must go.
As of Thursday evening, just 226 people had signed the petition.
Comments
Unfortunately, we Americans have forgotten how to distinguish between corporations seeking profits and simple greed. It's not just the organization; it is also the culture now teaching Americans that money comes first. In the old days, the concessionaires (then mostly railroads) were happy to be making modest profits--or none at all. They turned their park operations over to their hotel subsidiaries and made their profits running trains.
Now even the cooperating associations are on the profit fast track, refusing to carry anything that doesn't "sell." Unfortunately, education doesn't sell like a stuffed toy or a tee-shirt. In blaming Jarvis, we forget the "system" he inherited--now entirely with a life of its own. Want to run for Congress? You had better have a million bucks--and now a Congressman wants Jarvis to resign? Give me a break.
If we want to break the cycle, we first need to look in the mirror. Washington, D.C., sets the national standard, and there Wyoming Valley is absolutely right. Until we clean up Congress the federal agencies will be no better--including the National Park Service we so dearly support. Then we must clean up the culture and stop measuring everything in dollars and cents. We did it once in the parks, using the railroads--good access but also restraint. I know I sound old-fashioned, but yes, that is my formula. Take the train and the shuttle or stay home.
Complete agreement with Alfred's comment from here.
Are we still under the influence of President Cheney's Privatize the Parks campaign?
How much of all this comes from shady back door pressures from Capitol Hill?
We will never know for sure.
If Jon Jarvis goes what will happen to his Lobbyist brother Destry Jarvis who's had an open back door into the NPS for many years? ANSWER: He may have to get a real job where opportunities to influence NPS and Environmental actions may not fall into his lap from his brother.
One thing we do know is that Congress has a much lower opinion rating than Jarvis.
But that won't stop you from making the baseless accusations with absolute certainty.
Right, because we can be absoluely certain that our Congress is rotten to the core. And something like 95% of all Americans agree. It's a lot like the old days in Yosemite when the hippies tossed pot into their campfires. You could smell it everywhere, but it was almost impossible to track it down. NOthing is going to change until voters become smart enough to vote all imcumbents out of office and start over again. But that's a whole other story.
i think Jarvis does have a lower opinion rating than Congress. He is just delusional progressive scum.
Which says more about our electorate than Congress. While Congress' favorability rating may be in the single digits, the vast majority individual members of Congress are rated favorably by their constituants. That demonstrates how out of touch with reality you are when you call for voting out all incumbants as the solution.