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John Day Town Council Won't Support Resolution Asking Congress To Address Maintenance Backlog

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The town council of John Day, Oregon, the gateway to John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, has turned down a request to sign a resolution asking Congress to address the National Park Service's maintenance backlog/NPS, Scott Ritner

Across the country, nearly 150 communities have passed resolutions asking Congress to provide the funding needed to wipe out the National Park Service's maintenance backlog. The tiny town of John Day, Oregon, is not one of them.

No, during consideration of the resolution that Pew Charitable Trusts is taking around the country in search of support, the John Day Council turned down the request. And, according to the local Blue Mountain Eagle newspaper, one council member in particular made his position quite clear.

“If it’s a national park, I don’t want anything to do with it,” said Gregg Haberly. 

During discussion of the matter, Mr. Haberly expressed his worries that the money would go towards buying more land for the park system, which includes nearby John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. 

“It seems like they want local governments to do battle for their money,” he said. “My problem is that they don’t have enough money to do maintenance, but they can buy additional land for national parks.”

Other council members expressed concern that the resolution was too political, and that it perhaps was a better issue for the county to deal with.

The maintenance backlog facing the National Park Service is estimated at $11.3 billion, or more. Pew, through its Restore America's Parks initiative, is striving to both raise public awareness about the matter and identify solutions to wiping out the backlog.

According to 2016 figures from the National Park Service, John Day Fossil Beds had more than $1.5 million in deferred maintenance needs, most tied to paved roads ($567,851), unpaved roads ($313,876) and buildings ($289,520).

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Glad2bretired  PS:  Correction:  Malheur National Wildlfe Refuge is in Harney County
 
(Harney, the largest county in Oregon, was carved out of Grant County and named for Major General William S. Harney, commander of the Department of Oregon)
 
 
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2016/01/29/harney-county-sher...


m13:  I stand corrected!  After all the time I spent working out there, shouldn't have made that slip-up.


Harney County is my favorite place on Earth. My wife Christine introduced it to me after we were married, since her folks grew up there in the 1930s. Both graduated high school in Burns. Then the primary industry was logging--the Hines Lumber Company, to be specific. They had moved west from Minnesota, and Christine's grandparents had followed the jobs. The company promised to log on a 75-year cycle, breaking that promise in the postwar boom. By the 1960s the trees were running out and the mill was shedding jobs. Christine's father left his job organizing the logging workers and became a federal labor mediator for the rest of his career.

The point remains: These are good, hard-working people, now principally ranchers and service workers. My father-in-law got to go to college (Oregon State), and so was able to "move on." Most can't. We forget the many reasons why--family chief among them. It was true of my hometown, too (Binghamton, New York). Graduating high school in 1965, my friends could still work in the shoe, film, and furniture industries. They were solid jobs, if not high-paying. Most vanished in the 1970s, too. I got to go to college and "moved on." But where could those good folks move to?

In creating yet another underclass--"undocumented" workers--we forget that government has never had the answer--perhaps briefly in the 1930s under FDR, but we were a much smaller country then, And World War II gave everyone a job. Now? We need to be cautious when we criticize the working stiffs for not "loving" the national parks. Have we been fair to our workers? Fair to the history? Or do we just keep repeating half-truths that keep "our side" in power?

Now, go visit Harney County--the Big Empty. Further be thankful that environmentalists saved Steens Mountain from several massive wind energy projects. But again, the "saving" came at a price. The county again lost those jobs. As Kermit the Frog once said, "It isn't easy being green."


Wonder if anyone has carefully estimated the annual federal dollars flowing into
Harney and Grant Counties through the Dept. of Agriculture, Depts.
Interior: USFS, BLM, And NPS
in addition to Oregon State Government money funding both
salaries and pensions ? 
Wonder how the Bundy anti-Public Lands Crowd: the Criminal Hammonds and other private ranching income  Compare ?
Let's not forget the popular tourism dollars including Malheur National Wildlife Refuge 
Birding Advocates and Steens Mountain Tourism (highest road in Oregon with magnificent views)
also adding to the local economy; Imagine if Steens Mountain's Outstanding Glaciated Landscape were a large National Park with
Impressive Lodges vs. John Muir's  "Hoofed Locusts"  sheep grazng/trashing native vegetation ?
Our ordinary weekly visits to the local Burns
Social Center,  their small SAFEWAY Store, reveals both public and tourism
funds must be very significant  vs  the Cowboy "working stiffs"  income ?
Harney County Buckaroo Cowboy wages must be very low comparatively
in the State of Oregon.


Good points, m13cli, and I often use them myself. The problem is: The more "underclass" jobs we create, the more we fall victim to believing that they somehow compensate for the jobs we had. Remember the 1950s? I do. Every mom stayed home and raised her kids. Then along came Gloria Steinem and told the moms what they were "missing." Why, you also deserve a career! Is it a "career" to attend bar in Burns, Oregon? No woman I know would call it that. But there it is--what Gloria Steinem really accomplished. We no longer call it a career unless it pays Big Bucks.

What paid Big Bucks in the 1950s and 1960s? Not necessarily professional jobs, remains the point, nor did people aspire to Big Bucks remains the other point. They were content with just one house and car. A toolmaker, my father did very well on those terms, and yes, Mom stayed home and raised us kids. When father died, and she had to go back to work, Gloria Steinem was nowhere to be found.

Salaries and pensions, you say? Who even gets a pension anymore? Yes, government workers have been good at extracting them from taxpayers, but that again means YOU and ME. That is not a rising tide that lifts all boats, but rather a tide that keeps putting us in a hole. Last year, I met a retired captain from the California State Highway Patrol, who bragged that his pension was $167,000 annually. Oh, goodie! Californians will want to keep supporting that, especially now that the state is $300 billion in the hole. Says Governor Jerry Brown: But our state surplus THIS YEAR is $6 billion! Okay, now he only needs another 294. After all, the captain will sue for his pension (allegedly guaranteed by the Constitution) if the Governor doesn't pay.

We keep talking about the national parks deficit, while forgetting that the entire country is running a deficit. Some of these hicks from the Big Empty are right. It will all eventually come back to haunt us in ways no civilization should ever want to test.

Sorry, but tourism by itself can't pay the bills. Before people can "tour" the country they need good jobs. I would be the first to agree that Steens Mountain should be a national park. It's just that we can't pay for the parks we have when we pay government retirees $167,000 a year.


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