HomeMy WebLinkAbout1991-01-21; Parks & Recreation Commission; 191-7; Park Barrel PoliticsPARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION - AGENDA BILL
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RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Review and discuss the attached article and take appropriate action.
ITEM EXPLANATION;
Commissioner Finilla has requested this item be placed on the agenda for Commission
review, comment, and possible action. Commissioner Finilla will explain her intent and the
contents contained within the article.
EXHIBITS;
1. Article entitled, "Park-Barrel Politics"
18
Park-Barrel
Politics
If Congress has its way, there will be a
national park in every member's district
Anational park or historic site is
sort of like pornography—you
may not be able to define it, but
you know it when you see it. The
thundering falls of Yosemite, for
instance. The richly colored chasms of the
Grand Canyon. The family estate of Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt. The rusting rolling stock
of a rail yard called Steamtown, in Scran-
ton, Pa., where nothing of any significance
to the development of the nation's rail sys-
tem ever took place.
Whoa. For most of the 74 years since
the National Park Service was created,
there was no question that the wilder-
ness areas and historic sites named to the
national system had a significance that
other babbling brooks or old
houses didn't. No longer. Sav-
vy members of Congress have
discovered that Park Service
money can be used to promote
economic renewal in their dis-
tricts. Through the efforts of
Rep. Joseph McDade, for in-
stance, Steamtown was desig-
nated a National Historic Site
and has received $43.6 million
since 1986; Austin Burke, presi-
dent of the Scranton Chamber
of Commerce, expects that,
once the site is completed in
1994, the area will attract be-
tween 400,000 and 500,000 visi- '•
tors a year. "It's a major economic boost, an
impetus for urban development," he says:
Park barrel is nothing new. Political
clout, more than inherent merit, was re-
sponsible for Fort Stanwix in Rome, N.Y., a
fabrication of a Revolutionary War fort,
being designated a national monument in
1935. But until lately, nominations for bat-
tlefield sites, monuments,, seashores and
WILSON LAKE
Wilson, Kans.
To skeptics, a big
mud hole. To boosters like
Sen. Bob Dole, a national
recreation area.
KENNY CANS-NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
the other 13 categories within the national
park system have had to be formally re-
vieweJbyaPark~5fe'rvice panel'that hiclud-
edlhistorians, scientists and other scholars.
Congress, whose Cc-mtnlltees overseeing
the Interior .Department have the powerto
authorize new sites and appropriate money
toTmrtfaeui, Look this evaluation seriously.
The service, though, hasnotproposed a
• RALF FINN HESTOFT—PICTURE GROUP; MIKE BLAIR—KANSAS FISH & GAME DEPT.
60 NEWSWEEK : NOVEMBER 2jL 1990 <
Re'agan administration, opp'osea to sgend-
ingmoney to open new sites, disbanded the
paneT'Efiat evaluated nominees. That left
the responsibility entirely to Congress. As
a resultTpark-barrelhig 15 m6re open and
more egregious than ever. Says one official
who asked for anonymity, "Pork used to
come with a pretense of national signifi-
cance or recreational value, but now people
are so shameless they don't even bother to
put up that facade."
As a result, some 20 sites of dubious na-
tional significance have benefited from re-
cent congressional largesse. Among the zir-
cons in the Park Service crown:
' • The Keith-Albee Theater in Hunting-
ton, W.Va., which got its $4.5 million with
nary a congressional hearing, thanks to
Sen. Robert Byrd. The theater's claim to
fame'is that it's the largest, most ornate,
most unusual in the state, according to a
local booster magazine. (It now serves as a
four-screen multiplex.)
• Wilson Lake, a Corps of Engineers proj-
ect outside Wilson, Kans., which got
$125,000 for a feasibility study that may
lead to its being designated a national rec-
reation area. Although Sen. Robert Dole is
not on the appropriations committee for
the Park Service, "they took care of him
anyway," says one Hill staffer. Even some
locals were amused; one reporter called it
LARRY DOWNING—NEWSWEEK; KENNY G ANZ-N ATIONAL PARK SERVICE
STEAMTOWN
TKanks to Rep. Joseph
McDade, $43.6 million has
been spent on this
abandoned rail yard
"the nation's most significant mudhole."
• The former home of President McKin-
ley's in-laws, in the Canton, Ohio, district of
Rep. Ralph Regula, ranking Republican on
the Interior Department appropriations
subcommittee. The Feds will spend more
than $1 million in the two years it takes to
acquire it.
• The Charles Pinckney Mansion, named
after the South Carolinian who wrote part
of the Constitution, which was named a
National Historic Site in 1988, thanks to
Sen. Ernest Rollings. Unfortunately, not
only did Pinckney never live in the build-
ing, but it was built long after he died.
• A visitors' center for Lawrence Welk's
old home in Strasburg, N.D., got funded as
part of the Agriculture Department's pro-
gram to help impoverished farm towns. It's"
not in the park system yet, but is a likely
candidate for transfer once the town finish-
es its tourism master plan.
The critics' favorite target—partly be-
cause of large amounts of money in-
volved—is Steamtown. The project is a
product of the work of local boosters and
rail buffs who acquired engines and cars
(some Canadian) from a collection in Ver-
mont. The rolling stock was shipped to the
abandoned turn-of-the-century rail yard
in Scran ton. Representative McDade man-
aged to get Steamtown designated a Na-
tional Historic Site in 1986, and the feder-
al funds started steaming in.
The chamber of commerce's
Burke lauds Steamtown as "a
reminder of how hard people
worked at the turn of the cen-
tury and a reason to celebrate
bur heritage." Rail experts
have another view. In the cur-
rent issue of the journal Amer-
ican Heritage of Invention and Tech-
nology, John White, recently
retired as the Smithsonian In-
stitution's curator for trans-
portation, calls the stock "a
third-rate collection in a place
to which it had no relevance...
establishing a big railroad mu-
seum run by the National Park
Service would have been fine,
provided that some effort had
been made to evaluate all the
possible sites. None was, yet Congress just
keeps dumping more money into it." Paul
Pritchard, president of the private Nation-
al Parks and Conservation Association,
sees Steamtown as emblematic: "The Park
Service is the new dumping ground, the
place where Congress puts things that are
not wanted and not needed."
In the zero-sum federal budget game,
other parks projects are suffering even as
KEITH-ALBEE
THEATER
In a bow to Sen. Robert
Byrd, $4.5 million without
so much as a
congressional hearing
BRUCE HOERTEL; DAVID FATTALEH—HUNTINGTON QUARTERLY