Bay Area: Park visitors, federal employees feel sting as operations cease
Patty Kephart did the unthinkable this weekend.
She had to email the families of her 19 fourthgraders at the Bayshore School in Daly City and tell them that their field trip to Point Bonita Lighthouse at the Marin Headlands this week was canceled, and the park ranger they planned to host Tuesday would not show up.
“I feel awful. And mad,” Kephart said. “I blame Mitch McConnell,” the Senate majority leader from Kentucky.
The government shutdown that began at 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Friday continues into Monday, as lawmakers in Washington argue over how to resolve it.
Many federal operations have so far escaped a shutdown because they are considered essential
to health and safety, or have remaining funding: the U.S. Postal Service, school lunches and federal courts, for example.
Not so with national parks, passport offices inside federal buildings and even occupational safety reviews. The status of these federally funded services caused confusion over the weekend among adults who didn’t know what would be open or closed when the new workweek begins, and disappointment among children who were looking forward to a special field trip.
Of the 21,383 National Park Service employees across the country, from Point Bonita Lighthouse to Acadia National Park on Maine’s Atlantic coast, just 3,298 were permitted to work during the shutdown because they were considered essential for safety, according to the Park Service’s shutdown plan.
On Sunday, people could visit any of the 40 or so locations in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, as well as Muir Woods National Monument, Yosemite National Park, Kings Canyon or anywhere else within the Park Service’s 80 million acres. But they found park rangers furloughed, bathrooms locked, and information kiosks and parking lots shut down.
Restaurants and hotels that are run by private groups inside parks can remain open.
“There is massive visitor confusion,” said John Garder, director of budget and appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association, an independent organization of park advocates. “People don’t know which parks are open, and there’s no one to advise them on hikes, and nowhere to go to the bathroom.
“That raises major concerns about their safety and the preservation of things they’re coming to see,” Garder said. “We’re really concerned.”
Even federally funded websites were confusing if they weren’t updated after the shutdown. The Golden Gate National Recreational Area site listed Muir Woods as closed as of Sunday, for example. But on only the parking lot was closed Sunday, and visitors still walked among the redwoods.
On Sunday, Emily and Rob DeVoto of Colorado came to the Hyde Street Pier during a weekend getaway to San Francisco. Both were disappointed when they found the gate locked and a sign saying the area was closed “because of a lapse in federal appropriations.”
“It was definitely on our list, as was Alcatraz,” Emily DeVoto said. “It’s a bummer that the national parks are closed, but I don’t think this presidency really cares much about the environment or the national parks, period.”
The DeVotos did get audio tours of Alcatraz in the morning, but wished park rangers were there for more in-depth tours.
“We’re not surprised, we’re going to adjust, but it’s a bummer,” Rob DeVoto said.
UC Berkeley freshmen Will Edgar, Gevorg Mailyan and Isaias Marroquin also showed up along Hyde Street, hoping to get a close look at the historic schooners, scows and tugs docked at the famous pier.
Then Edgar saw the “closed” sign and yelled an expletive.
“We don’t have any money, so we were trying to enjoy all these great public services,” he said. “We don’t do anything if it’s not free.”
Edgar knew about the shutdown but said he “didn’t connect the dots” that the historic area would be closed.
Annette Scott of Arizona stood before the front door of the Maritime Museum on Beach Street looking disappointed. She was in town with her husband for a food convention and wanted to spend time at the museum with her son Jason, who lives in San Francisco.
“I guess we’re going to hang out at Fisherman’s Wharf,” she said.
Meanwhile, Kephart said that McConnell and the other congressional Republicans she blames for ruining her students’ field trip are undermining their own national science standards.
“My getting them out on the field trip is really important to closing the achievement gap,” Kephart said. “Ask most of my kids what they did over a break, and they will say that they played video games. Few of our families go to the national parks.”
Most are poor enough to participate in the federal free lunch program (which continues during the shutdown). This week, two classes of 10-yearolds, 39 students in all, expected to meet with a park ranger Tuesday to learn about plate tectonics and geological mapping of the ocean floor. On Thursday and Friday, they were to head to the lighthouse.
Then came the email: “Due to the federal government shutdown, we will not be offering education programs effective immediately. Once we return to the office, we will do our best to reschedule your classroom and park visits.“
In teaching about a lighthouse, Kephart said, you have to be at a lighthouse.
“Being there makes all the difference,” she said. “I have built this field trip up in my students’ minds. They will be so disappointed.”
“People don’t know which parks are open, and there’s no one to advise them on hikes and nowhere to go to the bathroom.”
John Garder, director of budget and appropriations, National Parks Conservation Association
Nanette Asimov and Benny Evangelista are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com, bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov, @ChronicleBenny