State officials have rolled out their plan to terminate direct management of state parks in Sitka, including two of the most historic sites in Alaska.
At a meeting of the Parks Citizen Advisory Board in Sitka on Tuesday morning, regional directors outlined their plan to find new management for the area parks and if no one steps forward, to put the parks into so-called “passive management.”
“Close the outhouses, so shutter them or board up the doors, so people can’t use them, because obviously if no one is there to maintain them, they’re not really safe or sanitary for the public to use,” says state Parks and Outdoor Recreation Operations Manager Clair LeClair.
LeClair stresses that the public will still be able to access the lands.
Board member AnneMarie LePalm was at the meeting and hopes that whatever the arrangementis, that it’s temporary.
“At some point if funding does improve statewide, then we would hope that state parks would hire again to have someone locally to manage the parks,” LePalm says.
The currently proposed state budget reduces funding for state parks by $500,000. Instead of spreading that cut evenly around the state, the state’s parks division proposed to end operations in Sitka and Valdez, and also to eliminate one ranger position in the Wood-Tikchik Park near Dillingham.
If approved, these changes would go into effect July 1.
