The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Garfield Site staff happy to be back
The recent U.S. federal government shutdown lasted 35 days, from Dec. 22 until Jan. 25.
No one knows this better than the national workers the impasse directly affected, including the staff at the Mentor-based James A. Garfield National Historic Site.
While the action has previously been a reality to National Park Service employees, the recent stalemate, the longest in U.S. history, brought both familiar and new challenges to Lawnfield.
“We just did what we needed to do to prepare the site to be closed and waited like everyone else for the president and Congress to come to an agreement to provide appropriations for the National Park Service to operate,” said Site Manager Todd Arrington. “We didn’t have any sense of how
long or short the shutdown might be.
“The October 2013 shutdown was the last significant shutdown,” he recalled. “There was a very brief one in January 2018 that only lasted a day or maybe two at most.”
In the winter, the site employs four full-time staff members, Fridays through Sundays, plus five seasonal, part-time or temporary employees. Additional employees are staffed during the summer when the site is open seven days a week.
As with many NPS sites and other locations during the shutdown, Garfield had employees designated to come to the site every day to check buildings and ensure physical security, including the front gate of the site remaining locked for the duration of the shutdown.
With employees returning to work on Jan. 28, the home was opened to the public on Feb. 1.
“We, of course, were very happy to be back at the site, both to see one another and also to get the site opened back up for public visitors,” Arrington said, adding that the site has a detailed plan that’s implemented any time a government shutdown occurs.
Arrington noted there are no concrete metrics to determine how many visits or dollars were lost at the site, especially in the slower winter months.
“It’s really tough to say,” he said. “Overall, we’re not affected like if a Target or Walmart closed for 30-plus days. Guided tours of the Garfield home and monthly specialty tours are the only things we charge for here, and it’s impossible to know how many visitors we would have had if the site had been open on those days. Plus, we always have numerous visitors who come and don’t take the tour.
“Our daily operations are funded through Congressional appropriations, not the fee dollars we collect,” Arrington said. “Much of our fee revenue eventually comes back to us in the form of project money that we are required to use on projects that have direct benefit to visitors, as we provide a service to the people. But it takes time for those fee dollars to get back to us.”
Arrington expressed his and the staff’s gratitude to the “wonderful” support the site received through the deadlock from the Mentor Police and Fire departments as well as Garfield’s colleagues at Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Members of the Garfield family and the site’s new nonprofit partner, the Garfield Alliance, also reached out to see if the home or any individual staff members needed anything.
“It’s always tough when we have to close the site because we want to be here working and making this wonderful place accessible to the public,” Arrington said. “Even on days we are closed to the public, our staff is here planning upcoming events, working on projects, plowing snow, cleaning the Garfield home and museum, going into schools to present programs, and doing a million other things that are part of running a National Park Service site.
“Suffice it to say, we’re glad to be back in the office doing what we do.”