Dear Reader,

I hope you can join us tomorrow for our first Freedom Convoy to the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center for Rocky Mountain National Park!

If you can make it, meet at the sign on the right side of US Highway 36 at 10:45 am. Flags, and red, white, and blue are welcome to celebrate Independence Day. 

We’ll convoy up to the Visitor’s Center, park, and present our petition to the volunteers or Rangers on station. Our permit to demonstrate lasts from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm. My plan is to hold some signs, chat with visitors, and meet some of you to discuss our next steps in ending the reservation system once and for all.

Speaking of which, are other Freedom Convoys planned.  I’ve been sent some great ideas from other Estes Park residents and visitors who want to peacefully but unmistakably make their point that this system is unfair and we’re not going away. More to come on that.

Why we’re demanding that Superintendent Darla Sidles Resign

In the meantime, below you’ll find a link to all the documents released as a result of our Freedom of Information Act Request (Google Drive was the easiest, fastest way for me to share them with you). It’s not a lot of information (six PDFs and three Excel Spreadsheets). I’ve reviewed them a few times.

If you’re wondering why we think these documents justify calling for the resignation of the Superintendent—which some people may feel is drastic and overly personal—consider these three points. These are my main takeaways from reviewing the documents that have so far been released.

1. Create confusion, mis-represent data. Superintendent Sidles appears to have told local and State government officials that restrictions were necessary this year due to Covid-19 and last year’s terrible wildfires. Understandably, local officials were sympathetic with her plans. But to her higher ups, she then represented that as local and State approval of long-term restrictions—a totally different project. She has created the impression for her superiors at in the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior that long-term restrictions have broad local support. This is not true, as much of the public still doesn’t even know her plans. What’s worse, according to an internal survey whose results were released as well, RMNP staff and volunteers were almost evenly divided about whether last year’s system made their experience better or worse (119 vs. 116). And more Park employees and insiders said last year’s timed entry restrictions made the visitor experience WORSE rather than better. This contradicts the Superintendent’s public statements that last year’s system was well received by Park staff and the public and improved visitor experience.
2. Keep the public in the dark. The Superintendent knew in early February (and probably sooner) that she was going to (or wanted to) impose reservations in 2021. But she worked with both her superiors in Denver and Washington, DC AND local officials to keep the public in the dark as long as possible (everything in quotations below is taken directly from the body of this week’s released emails).  The plan had been worked on ‘extensively’ but she wanted to keep it ‘on the down low’ because that ‘worked just fine last year.’ It was ‘quietly discussed and vetted’ internally and with complicit local government officials. But the plan appears to have been to give the public as little time as possible to understand what was happening, so as to prevent opposition. It was done, apparently, with the support of her superior Mike Reynolds in Denver (the Regional Director for NPS).
3. Use Covid-19 to make restrictions permanent. Once NPS and Department of Interior higher-ups in Washington were convinced that the Superintendent’s plans had support from officials at the local, they began to discuss how to tell the public about ‘future strategies including parking reservations, seasonal day hiking permits for high-use areas like Longs Peak, vehicle permits for Bear Lake Road and Wild Basin, and a permanent parkwide reservation system.’ The concept of such a plan had already been ‘worked on extensively’ (for at least two years) and was ‘ready to go.’

Superintendent Sidles needs to resign. She informed local officials about a temporary plan for 2021. It was presented as a response to staffing issues related to Covid-19 and last year’s fires. Then, up the chain of command, she described the reaction of those local officials as ‘overwhelmingly supportive’ with not a single nay-sayer or ‘significant concerns.’

Were local officials misled? Or did they just go along with the plan because they agreed with it? We're looking into it with a Colorado Open Records Request (CORA). In the meantime...

On the basis of local support gained in response to Covid and fires, her superiors in Denver and Washington appear to have approved her short-term AND long-term plans. In other words, Covid was a Trojan horse to smuggle in long-term and permanent restrictions on Park access.

That was the Superintendent's plan all along. 

Maybe you’ll reach a different conclusion after reading the emails. I’ve asked Rocky’s Public Relations Officer Kyle Patterson to voluntarily release all emails and proposals related to getting permission for the long-term restrictions. This FOIA request was narrowly defined to get information in the 2021 system. I’m waiting for her response (she’s been great the whole time, but I think she’s in a bubble about how the public is reacting to the secretive and arrogant tactics of her boss).

A reasonable and fair-mined person would look at this pattern of behavior from Superintendent Sidles and conclude she was deliberately misleading in her  public communications, both toward local officials AND her superiors, and certainly to the public. 

The public has been treated like an inconvenient after thought in this whole process, rather than as an equal stakeholder in the fate of our public lands. That’s not good enough. You can't say one thing privately and do another thing publicly. 

It’s a disappointing (and I believe deliberately misleading) performance from a public servant. And it’s clear, to me anyway, that Covid-19 and the fires were used to speed up the Superintendent's long-term plan to take away public access to public lands for reasons that are, thus far, still private, political, or unknown. 

And she appears to have the support of key people at the National Park Service or the Department of Interior, unless they were unaware of what her long-term plan really was. We'll find out soon enough. 

We all deserve better, not least the employees and volunteers of Rocky Mountain National Park. They’ve had to bear the brunt of the public anger over the new restrictions. And then, they’ve had their own views and comments and suggestions mis-represented in the survey the Park ran last year. That’s deeply unfair to them.

Based on what we’ve seen and heard so far, the Superintendent ought to do the right thing and resign immediately. She’s attempting, through the control and manipulation of information, to set a precedent where you have to ask permission and pay extra money to visit America’s National Parks.

It’s massive bureaucratic over-reach. It’s unfair, unnecessary, and undemocratic. And we need to stop it now, before it spreads to other National Parks, State Parks, and National Forests. Public lands belong to the people, not to government employees.

Let’s get new leadership at Rocky. Let’s get a Superintendent who wants to work WITH the public, instead of keeping it in the dark and then blaming it for the Park’s problems.

Let’s work with our legislators and elected officials to get the Park the resources it needs so it can fulfill the mission it was designed for: the preservation of beautiful natural wonders so they public can enjoy them without reservation.

Regards,

Dan

PS Below is the link to download the files. I'll try to find another way to share them if you can't use it. Contact me at dan.denning@gmail if you'd like me to email them directly to you.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x_N3PddcTFv_rZWk9dKIVJiLop33SyfT/view?usp=sharing

PPS This week's picture is from a hike to Chasm Lake last year. It's one of the areas that might require further permits in the coming years if we give up and let Superintendent Sidles carry out her plan to close off public lands to the people.