NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Friday, December 29, 1995 - SPECIAL EDITION

Broadcast: 2:30 p.m. EST

This special edition of the Morning Report is being sent to you to convey the
text of several documents pertaining to the current shutdown.  THESE ARE
INFORMATIONAL ONLY - all parks and offices should continue to contact their
shutdown coordinators for specific information and instructions.

The first was sent by Director Roger Kennedy on December 28th: 

With the events of recent days, I thought it was timely to write to you. 
Unfortunately, the budget crisis is continuing with no apparent
resolution.  As you know, these are historic struggles over the nature
and direction of our government and we are not the target.  This fact
does not make this period any easier to bear but it may make it easier to
understand.  I am proud to be your colleague and your Director during
this period.

Thank you for your continuing professionalism and commitment to the
resources and people of the National Park Service.  Thank you as well to
those who must work in emergency positions and to those who serve by
waiting and praying for a speedy resolution.  As we expected, our people
are responding with courage and resourcefulness.  We will endure and we
will emerge stronger as many communities continue to express their
commitment to the value of our national parks.

I know that for many uncertainty about pay is causing great anxiety and
distress; I wish it were within my power to calm those fears, and I
regret that it is not.  I can offer my commitment to support all efforts
to restore your pay when this crisis is past.  Until then, stay safe and
hold true to the ideals that brought you to our common mission.

The following was sent today to all employees by Deputy Director John Reynolds:

It is early in the "workday"--a strange word during shutdown--here in
Washington, DC.  So far, I am the only one here today--the rest of the
skeleton crew will be here shortly.  By about 9:30 it will be full tilt
around here until about 4:00 or 5:00.  Congressmen will call wondering
why this or that can't be opened.  There will be a flurry of activity to
try to negotiate opening parts of some more parks with donated money. 
Yesterday's and today's will focus on Independence and maybe the Statue
of Liberty.  The phone calls will be virtually continuous.

Many parks and offices have responded to our requests for specific and
general impacts, both to the park and local communities and to employees. 
I have read about 50 responses this morning.  The only words that I can
find to sum up my feelings, and the feelings of all of you, are deep
smoldering anger and heart-rending sadness.

We are angry because we are pawns in somebody else's battle, and have no
control or much effect on the results.  We are angry because it is not
happening to all federal employees, just some of us.  We are angry
because we consider ourselves--rightly--a professional corps of civil
servants who have chosen to protect America's finest heritage and make it
available to people to enjoy and learn from.  We consider ourselves part
and parcel of this country's heritage, patrimony and future--and believe
that most of the citizens of this country believe that to be the case. 
And yet we are treated like dirt--only because we are being used as pawns
in a legitimate budget disagreement.  We feel that the government of the
United States should not be like other governments seem to be--we ought
to be able to carry on the legitimate debate over major policy and at the
same time operate our country while that debate is going on.  We feel
betrayed by our own government because it is not working that way.

We are angry because we can't even volunteer legally to continue to work
for the good of our parks, our country, and our country's citizens.  We
are angry because we can't do what we have chosen to dedicate our lives
to doing.

We are also angry because our personal economics are being played with.
For many, many of our employees this means the reality of not being able
to support kids, pay rent or mortgages on time, cutting back at
Christmas, not taking planned time off--the hundreds of things that we
have to pay for and want to pay for--and are now afraid that we can't.
Many of us are angry not because of what it does to us personally, but
because of what it is doing to our friends and co-workers.

We are angry because this shutdown hurts others in our communities--both
people and businesses.  Our concessioners, cooperating associations and
other cooperators are part and parcel of us and our mission--and all are
being hurt badly.  Our friends and partners in local communities such as
gas stations, motels, restaurants, gift shops, schools, and many others
are also hurt badly--and we cannot help them. 

We are angry because there are research projects, resource management
projects, educational programs are being set back or, in some cases, lost
completely.

We are angry because vendors are not getting paid, and because we as
individuals and as an agency are losing credibility with the public, both
individually and as a whole.

All of this and more comes through in conversations I have with people
all over the Service and from the impact messages that parks and offices
are sending in.  In 34 years in the Park Service, I have never heard nor
seen on paper such a consistent, deeply pervasive honest outpouring of
anger and sadness.

Our sadness is the deepest feeling that comes through, and it is the
collective result of our anger and our frustration about not being able
to do anything about it.

All of that is shared by myself and the rest of the leadership of the
National Park Service.  We feel it as deeply as you do.  It makes coming
to work to try to keep us going through all this very hard--and very
easy.  The feeling in here and in the field area offices above all is to
try to do everything we can to come out of this as well as possible, and
to put us back up and running as quickly as possible when it is over. The
level of commitment has never been deeper, or more personally caring. 
We, too, are frustrated. But not so surprisingly, this has served to
reaffirm our own personal commitments to why we took these jobs--for the
resources, for the citizens of this country, and for each of you.

I'm sure you are curious about some things that are going on--probably
more than I know.  Let's take a couple.

First, partial park openings.  Right now there are two--Grand Canyon and
Carlsbad Caverns.  There may be an agreement on Independence before this
is over.  There have been attempts for Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand
Teton, Statue of Liberty, Hawaiian Parks, and a few others which have
fallen through or there is not yet agreement on.

There are some very important factors here.  The Secretary believes, and
those of us here have come to agree with him, that politically in both
the long and short run we are doing the right thing.  We feel strongly
that to have either demanded that full park operations be funded or just
saying no would have brought much greater pressures to bear that could
have endangered the National Park System as we believe in it.  After this
is all over, I'd be glad to discuss this in depth with any of you.

Once that decision was made, the Director, the Secretary and the
Solicitor made the decision to require the highest possible standards,
which include 1) the state with which we have an agreement must in
writing and verified by the State Attorney General assume liability for
the United States and the Park Service, 2) our employees must run the
park, not somebody else's employees, 3) the park must be run to our
standards, not some different standard, 4) and that the money must be in
hand before the park is opened.  So far, the agreement negotiations that
have fallen through have all done so because of the liability issue in
some form or another.

Most of you will read this after the shutdown is over so some of this
won't be doing you any good while you are living through it.  That is a
lead in to discussing the status of getting us back to work.  My reading
is that it is still very tenuous.  It is not likely to happen before next
Wednesday, and I think it is very likely to extend beyond.  There is very
little being said publicly by either the President or Gingrich or Dole. 
There is a little indication that the fact that the effects are going way
beyond the government is beginning to be felt in the Congress.  I wish I
could be wiser and be the great predictor, but that is impossible.  Tied
up in all this is the question of pay--do we get paid or not?  All the
parties in Congress have said we will, but there is no law passed yet
that says we will.  We do not get paid on time, we know that for sure. 
So, I strongly urge you to manage your finances tightly--apply for
unemployment, call your bank and see if they will help you out in some
way (some credit unions are giving low or no-interest loans, for
instance), talk to your credit card companies, etc. We are working with
GSA to try to get American Express to delay penalties if your official
AmEx bill is not paid on time.

For those of you who do get this, please try to get pertinent information
to those who do not.  There is a notice on the Director's Bulletin Board
every day trying to keep as many of you up to date as possible.

I wish you all a Happy New Year, in spite of all this.  We must keep in
mind that we are most needed to protect our parks when the parks most
need protecting...that is now.  So please think seriously about all this,
but rededicate yourselves with me to fighting to keep America's parks a
shining centerpiece of what America is and can be.  There is no one else
but us and our like-minded friends who can do this job.  It is up to
us--and it is vitally important to our Nation and our world to keep
going, no matter what.

I realize how hard that may be for you right now.  The picture that
continues to run in my mind is the one on TV of National Park Service
employees in Grand Teton filling out unemployment forms, when all they
really want to do is their jobs.  That picture applies to all of us, and
it is a picture that makes me very sad, because proud, dedicated people
in all walks of National Park Service life are being forced to do
something they never thought they would ever have to do.

Please keep your spirits up.  We care very much.

The third and final memorandum contains an update on particulars regarding the
shutdown and was sent out yesterday by Deputy Director Reynolds:

All-Employees Memo -- Assistant Secretary Cohen's memo, "Pay During
Furlough," was faxed to Shutdown Coordinators and human resource
staff in Field Areas this morning.  A cc:mail version was also
provided in a Special Edition of the Morning Report.  Please do
what you can to disseminate widely.  [Editor's Note: This memo is
the one sent out in the December 28th Morning Report]

American Express -- Departmental officials are working with GSA
regarding delayed payments of employee bills during this time
period.  We will keep you posted if anything develops.
-
-
Seasonal Hiring -- With the January 15 application deadline rapidly
approaching, we intend to extend this deadline to February 8, and
possibly later if this continues much longer.  More information
will be transmitted to your human resources offices on the
specifics when available.

Impacts of Shutdown -- Thank you all for sending examples.  They
were accepted by the Department's budget office for use during
budget negotiations, as requested by OMB, and to answer media
inquiries.

Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the cooperation and
support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

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