Protestors Rally to Support Acadia
BAR HARBOR—Dozens of protestors on Saturday turned out in Bar Harbor at noon to indicate their support for Acadia National Park and its workers and to protest President Trump’s cuts to the park’s staffing. It was one of at least 145 gatherings in the country located near the 433 national park sites.
According to the New York Times, “The National Park Service said it was working with protest organizers to allow people to ‘safely exercise their First Amendment rights,’ while protecting its resources.”
The gathering on Bar Harbor’s village green featured impassioned speeches from current and past employees as well as Mount Desert Island residents.
“Is this how we let people steal our heritage?” asked a Bar Harbor resident.
“No!” the crowd replied.
“Would you perform surgery with a chainsaw?”
“No!”
“Are they here to serve our nation or themselves?”
“Themselves.”
“National parks are America’s best idea. The men and women working in our national parks are national heroes. They are serving our nation. They aren’t serving their pocketbooks,” the man said.
One current government employee spoke of the beauty of the parks and its impact on her childhood.
“Acadia was my first assignment in 1977,” she said. She’s spent decades stewarding the park and helping locals and visitors.
As she finished her speech, the crowd chanted, “Save our parks. Save our parks.”
“The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management,” the Park Service press team wrote and sent out to various newspapers this week. “We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks.”
Many of the speakers spoke to the Trump administration’s discussions about employees that were fired. Most of those employees were probationary, which means that they were in that position for one-to-two years.
At Acadia National Park, multiple positions in fee collection and maintenance were lost. Another employee in education lost their job. A seasonal freeze on hiring has been loosened, but it is unknown how many employees the park will be able to hire. Some positions are listed.
“We lost eight people at Acadia National Park,” one woman said, and she said it wasn’t true that it would help cut federal costs. “They say that they’re saving money. These people’s paychecks are funded by fee revenue and donations. They aren’t saving a penny. Not a cent. It is untrue.”
Acadia National Park lost eight year-round employees in February. All of those, the speaker said, had dedicated years working in seasonal positions to earn their places as year-round employees.
“These are not newbies. These are dedicated, passionate, hard-working people and they were cut for no reason,” she said.
Approximately 30 job offers had been rescinded.
The park has approximately 100 year-round positions and about 75% of those were filled.
Park fees tend to generate approximately $12 million. Approximately 80% of Acadia National Park’s fees come back to supporting the park.
One man said “I had to let four of my staff members go that I’d just hired back in December.”
They were great people, he said, before saying their names with permission. The crowd applauded each person’s name.
One man, he said, had worked on Cadillac Mountain and been called a Nazi by visitors.
“And he still wanted to come back here and make under $35,000 a year,” he said. “These people are not parasites. They are not here just to collect a paycheck. We can all make so much more in the private sectors. We are here because we love all of you, because we love our park, and we love our country.”
Unless otherwise noted all photos: Carrie Jones and Shaun Farrar/Bar Harbor Story.
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I wish I could have been there! Standing in solidarity!
Slava Ukraini!!!
Dozens? That implies a small group, not the large crowd that attended. It was at least few hundred. Maybe a minor point, but important. Why downplay it?