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Surfers in the ocean found a way to reach the beach on Friday, May 15, 2020. ZACH URNESS / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Director
Continued from Page 1B
that seemed really im-
portant, this is back to
the foundation. It brings
you back to what’s really
important.
Zach: Currently, there
are 18 state parks closed,
either because of COVID,
staffing shortages or
wildfires. There are limits
on renting yurts and cab-
ins, a lot of campgrounds
don’t have showers open.
What’s the outlook in the
short and longer-term?
Lisa: As of October 1st,
we have restored some of
the field budgets for the
parks. Our goal is to be
fully staffed for next
March. You’ll start seeing
the cabins and yurts re-
opening this week. Our
intent, depending on
what else happens be-
tween now and the end of
the year, is to have the
system ready to be fully
receiving all of its visitors
by (next) March.
Chris Havel: Between
January and March, we’ll
have time to experiment
with different proce-
dures, making sure that
we can have the supplies
and staffing and time to
keep showers open and
clean. For things like
yurts and cabins, how
can we keep those open
in a way that’s best for the
visitor and best for the fa-
cility? That can mean
things like requiring res-
ervations sometimes or
requiring a resting period
between stays for some
of those facilities. Be-
tween that January-
March timeframe, you
may seem some facilities
pop open with different
procedures just to try
things out, so that when
we hit the full season
next year, we’ve got a
good test behind us and
are ready to go.
Zach:
Cool.
Well,
that’s good news. In
thinking about other
places that have chal-
lenges facing them, a few
parks were hit by wild-
fires, What’s their status?
Lisa: We’re looking at
those initial disaster as-
sessment and trying to
figure out what exactly is
the damage on the
ground, how can we get
the park system back up
and functioning to the
best of its ability. Some of
them will be slow.
Havel: A place like
North Santiam Recrea-
tion Area isn’t a single
thing. There’s an area to
get down to the river,
there is a small camp-
ground there, there are
picnic areas, there’s even
a cute little trail. What we
try to do is figure out
which experiences are
the most important to
bring back first and put
the effort into getting
those back online sooner.
Zach: Before we jump
into what happened this
year, I want to ask about
the extra fee you imposed
on out-of-state campers.
At least with Oregonians,
this is very popular. Will
that stay long-term?
Lisa: As of December,
Lisa Sumption, director of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, stands
with J.R. Beaver, mascot for the Junior Ranger Program. SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN
JOURNAL
our intent is to remove
the out of state fee. We
can have a much larger
dialogue about fees going
forward and this created
the opportunity to have a
dialogue, but I don’t feel
comfortable in the middle
of a crisis making a deci-
sion that would later look
like we did it just to make
money because it did not
have the effect. It did
bring in additional reve-
nue, so we do thank the
out of staters for that and
we’re thankful that the
(COVID) numbers didn’t
go up, but it was just an-
other tool to add to the
toolbox to see if we could
try to be more responsi-
ble in the middle of a
global pandemic.
Zach: Let’s jump back
in time. When COVID
first popped up in Febru-
ary and started spread-
ing, how did you think it
would impact Oregon’s
state parks?
Chris: We knew it was
going to be dramatic. I
don’t think any of us
imagined how quickly
things would evolve, and
I think that’s probably the
single largest thing that
we didn’t prepare for. We
had a plan to gradually
shut down the park sys-
tem and it was, originally,
it was like a 30-day plan.
It was like, you know
what? That’s not aggres-
sive enough. Let’s get
really aggressive and
make a two-week plan.
Two days later, we closed
the entire state park sys-
tem in 48 hours.
Zach: That was a
weekend I’ll always re-
member. Gov. Brown had
advised people to stay
home but look, it was a
beautiful weekend on
spring break, and Orego-
nians did what Orego-
nians do. They flooded
out to the Oregon Coast
and that kick started a
really remarkable series
of events.
Lisa: On Friday, every-
thing seemed OK. Satur-
day morning, it just start-
ed blowing up. I mean,
my phone literally, coun-
ty commissioners, may-
ors, all nine cities, all five
counties, and just having
the dialogue of like, what
are you going to do about
this? It was like... so how
are we going to get, I
mean, at Fort Stevens
there was 5,000 people in
one park, and you think
about the city of Warren-
ton, its total population
isn’t anywhere near that.
You could see the things
on social media where
people from Portland
were going in and saying,
‘Look, we finally found
toilet paper,’ and they
were loading their cars
and... For the community
perspective, they were
just like, this is very in-
sensitive, and nobody
cares. The emotions were
high, the patience was
low, the fear was high, so
we talked through it. (Of-
ficials) were very, very
anxious for their commu-
nities, so we just agreed,
go ahead and hold your
public meeting, ask us to
leave, we’ve got the team
on the ground ready to go,
we’ll get folks out of
there.”
Zach: And people did
leave pretty quickly. It
wasn’t a drawn-out fight.
The Oregon Coast be-
came a ghost town pretty
quick. On March 23rd,
you made the official de-
cision to shut down all
the Oregon state parks —
not just the ones on the
Coast. What was that
moment like, I mean,
pulling the trigger for the
entire system because
we’re not just talking
about the coast here,
we’re talking about east-
ern Oregon and central
Oregon? I mean, was it a
surreal moment? Is there
a red button you push?
Chris: There was a lit-
tle numb shock around
the room in that moment,
but it was very short be-
cause then you move on
and you do your job.
Lisa: The hardest part
is you always have a fin-
ish line and there’s no fin-
ish line. Once we do this,
then what? It was kind of
like, well, we’ve adapted
so much in the last two
weeks — let’s go.
Zach: That began
what was really a surreal
time. Because following
state parks, all of Ore-
gon’s outdoor recreation
was shut down. I mean, I
wrote stories about the
police stopping a guy
drifting down the Siletz
River and surfers getting
cited for trying to get out
onto the beach. Instead of
rangers inviting people
in, they’re trying to keep
them out. What was that
period like for you and
your staff as your mission
almost flips on its head?
Lisa: I can’t even imag-
ine what it felt like for a
ranger in that moment
because that’s not what
you sign up to do. You
don’t sign up to keep peo-
ple out of your parks. You
want people in, and you
want to welcome them,
and you want to interpret
the space and you want to
make the experience
great. All of a sudden,
we’re in this weird space
of trying to keep people
out. And once we re-
opened, and we’re ready
to let people back in, it’s
come in ... but don’t come
near me. It’s been a very
interesting time for all of
us because it’s a very un-
usual way to do business.
Zach: After a little
more than two months,
you slowly started re-
opening parks. But that
extended closure, and
pandemic in general,
brought a pretty big fi-
nancial hit to the agency
that led to some parks
staying closed and re-
duced services. Can you
explain how the shut-
down and all the things
were happening hit your
budget so hard?
Lisa: We were closed
for 13 weeks and that was
our prime season. Once
spring break hits, we
make most of our money
in that three-month win-
dow. Being closed for 13
weeks was significant.
We don’t receive general
fund dollars, so there are
zero tax dollars coming
into the organization.
We’re split about half and
half with user fees and
the Oregon Lottery. And
not only did we shut
down the park system,
we shut down bars and
we shut down restau-
rants in places where
people could play video
poker and have those lot-
tery opportunities. All of
that was closed at the
same time. It was like the
faucet went off. It it
translated to about a $22
million shortfall.
We didn’t hire almost
371 seasonal rangers. We
laid off 47 full- time
equivalent
employees.
We reopened up to the
best of our ability, which
meant in some places
there weren’t showers,
there weren’t facilities
available, there weren’t
cabins and yurts, there
weren’t interpretive ser-
vices. Trying to lower the
standard, I think, was
probably the hardest part
for us because (our rang-
ers) want to give the best
experience possible and
we had to keep going back
and saying, ‘It’s okay. It’s
okay to be C students
right now.’ Just getting
access and getting people
out there is going to be
the best we can do. It’s
been incredible to watch
what they’ve been able to
pull off.”
Zach: In looking back,
was it worth it? Oregon’s
numbers did stay low —
but once everything re-
opened the numbers
ticked up, and we just had
our highest two day total
since the pandemic start-
ed. So was all that pain
worth it?
Lisa: It would be really
neat to be able to look
back and say which way
you could or should or
might have gone, and I
still don’t know that we
know enough. Through
the entire process I’ve
been talking to my broth-
ers and sisters across the
country that run other
state park systems and
every one of us handled it
differently. Some stayed
open the entire time and
others were completely
shut down. New Mexico
opened up camping to
their own residents for
the first time on October
1st because they didn’t
know how to keep out of
staters out, so they just
closed the entire system
down.
I have no regrets for
how we handled it. We
had a plan, but people
were not complying with
the travel restraints. They
were told to stay in their
bubbles
and
people
weren’t doing that, so it
seemed like the right
thing to do and I think if
we had it in front of us
again, I wouldn’t change
any of it actually.
Zach Urness has been
an outdoors reporter,
photographer
and
videographer in Oregon
for 12 years. Urness is the
author of “Best Hikes
with Kids: Oregon” and
“Hiking Southern Ore-
gon.” He can be reached at
zurness@StatesmanJour
nal.com or (503) 399-
6801. Find him on Twitter
at @ZachsORoutdoors.
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