Grand Teton National Park staff is seeking public thoughts on the operation of concessions in the park/Kurt Repanshek file
Editor's note: This corrects that the comment period is to collect input on what concession services visitors would like to see in Grand Teton National Park.
Now is the time to let Grand Teton National Park officials know what you think of concession services in the park and if there are any areas you would like to see changes.
The current concessions contract for visitor services at Colter Bay Village, Jackson Lake Lodge, Jenny Lake Lodge, and other locations expires at the end of 2021, and the park staff is asking for public comment on what visitors would like to see in the new contract that takes effect January 1, 2022.
For instance, Grand Teton staff is considering the following items for inclusion in that pact:
• Fire protection measures would be implemented to reduce fire hazards and achieve compliance with modern fire safety codes at Jackson Lake Lodge and various concessioner-assigned buildings at the park.
• Additional employee housing would be constructed, including year-round employee housing for about six to 12 employees and their dependents in the Jackson Lake Lodge employee housing area, 10 to 12 seasonal employees at Jenny Lake Lodge, and six to 12 seasonal employees at the Colter Bay Employee RV Area.
• An existing room at Jackson Lake Lodge would be reconfigured as a full-service kitchen to serve the Blue Heron Lounge and replace the current outdoor cooking area.
• New 50-amp electric hookups would be added to 57 existing RV campsites at the Colter Bay Campground.
• Accessibility improvements for persons with disabilities would be installed for the parking area, access routes, gangways to the dock and tour boats, and restroom at Colter Bay Marina; and the dock, gangway, trail, cook site, and composting toilet at Elk Island.
• An existing concessioner-assigned warehouse and recycling facility at the Colter Bay Administrative Area would be relocated to a new nearby location.
Public comment is being taken on the Grand Teton proposal through March 5 at this page.
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Comments
Colter Bay Village, Jackson Lake Lodge, Jenny Lake Lodge, and other consessioners should put signs up at all points of sale that they are a National Park Consessioner and include the phone number and email address for the office in Grand Teton National Park that handles complaints and comments on concessions. Comment cards should also be made available for customers by concesssioners and sent in to the GTNP office for monthly review. Words to this effect are already in the Concession Contracts but based upon my experience as a customer of the concessioners and the NPS, they do not comply.
The Concessioner should have to publically post online and on their property comments from customers that the NPS collects as well as the concessioner's safety records. The public should know if there are any customer or employee injuries or deaths that have occured with the concession. The consessioner should be required to keep injury and death safety records for all employees and customers.
I am no fan of park concessionaires; too many are predatory and parasitic. And I believe that absolutely every requirement in any and all concessionaires' contracts should be enforced by getting back to serious, regular, comprehensive formality of operations style reviews. Those types of reviews were taken much more seriously in the days prior to our current scofflaw attitudes towards rules, regulations, and formality, but have fallen into relative disrepair over the past twenty years of intellectual erosion. Just having to conduct or even participate those kinds of serious, comprehensive, reviews would have the added benefit of strongly reinforcing the understanding, skills, and training of the federal employees on the site.
But, William Baehr has pointed out some especially important requirements. Yes, records of all "customer or employee injuries or deaths" and all other safety significant occurrences should be reported, recorded, and made available to the public, including incidents within employee housing when that housing is on federal property. This requirement should also be extended to nonprofits who are allowed to operate or house volunteers or employees in or on federal property. This is standard practice on federal sites and NPS units are federal sites.
Special attention should be given to the preservation of employment records. Concessionaires, nonprofits, and the NPS all make use of seasonal or temporary employees. There are legitimate reasons for these practices; however, there have been plenty of instances where concessionaires, nonprofits, and the NPS have all misused and abused these practices in order to subject such employees to substandard, if not outright inappropriate conditions and treatment, while relying on the passing of time and vague or incomplete employment records to provide cover and deny the employees any effective recourse. Especially in the areas of health, safety, and labor rights, contract requirements and regulations should guarantee that those employees are ensured their full legal rights and those rights should reflect standard practice on federal sites. No concessionaire, no nonprofit, and especially no NPS asset should be allowed to indulge in or cover up discriminatory or exploitive behavior simply by evading requirements to preserve employment records and evidence.
here should be some way to reinforce contract, agreement, or employment provisions to deal with concessionaires, nonprofits, or NPS employees who demonstrate behavior openly hostile to NPS principles or mandates. One example of this type of hostile behavior might be behavior degrading to the park environment. I remember how, when the level of Lake Powell unexpectedly dropped, it was discovered that used/expired boat batteries had been just dumped into the water near areas of the marina used by concessionaires. Another example might be deceitful business behavior, such as the secretive and clearly predatory copyrighting of historic names in Yosemite. That clearly corrupt concessionaire actually seems to have extorted an undesrerved windfall profit out of that deal and should no longer be allowed to operate in any national park; yet, they're still around, unreformed.
Finally, political influence will always be there to impact the enforcement of requirements or regulations. Requirements for concessionaires, nonprofits, and NPS employees should include specific procedures for the termination of any and all contracts, agreements, or employment in the event contract, agreement, or employment requirements are violated.
Excellent comments and suggestions. Transparency of NPS records needs to be online and available to the public. Why should we have to do an FOIA request in order to access our public records? Is there national security secrets involved? I doubt it. I recently requested concessioner safety information from GTNP and Yellowstone. GTNP and Yellowstone want a FOIA request for the information which should be easily available for the public to see. Does the NPS really care about public safety? I wish that National Parks Traveler would explore in blog the lack of NPS transparency. The NPS says they want the public engaged but when I try to engage they make it difficult. In this day and age I am sure NPS employees can easily access NPS documents. Why can't we?
Another area of improvement for this concession would be in public safety of employees. If you have a scanner and are in the area during operating season tune it to 171.675 in the evening. I bet you will soon hear a call from Park Dispatch for a ranger to check out some unsafe employee activity at either Colter Bay or Jackson Lake Lodge employee housing areas. I have heard calls involving fighting, stabbing, theft, room on fire, loud parties as well as drug and alcohol overdoses. I hope someone with the NPS law enforcement has done a study on this safety issue and will start holdling the concessioner responibkle for providing a secure and safe place for employees to live. Why should rangers have to spend so much time policing employees of the concession?