NPS leadership excoriated for sexual harrassment

Many of you know that what started with some upset over the guide services being given preferential access to Mount Rainier during the 2006/7 flood "closure" has gotten to be a much bigger deal for me. The more I pulled on the thread, the more I saw the scope of the mess. It started, for me, with one little thing, but the more I dug the more I realized there is a cronyistic, permissive culture in the upper levels of the NPS that doesn't hold leaders accountable and repeatedly looks the other way, and even promotes perpetrators.

In the spring the director of the NPS was stripped of his responsibility for ethics in the service due to his own ethics violations. How/why he was left employed is baffling to me. Over the summer a sexual harassment cover-up at Grand Canyon finally cost former Rainier Supt. Dave Uberuagua his job (for ignoring it for years), though he was allowed to retired with full benefits at taxpayer expense.

I was in DC for work yesterday and met with a staffer of Sen. Patty Murray to voice my concerns about these and other issues with the NPS. I didn't know that there was a simultaneous meeting of the House Oversight Committee to hear testimony from two whistleblowers and an NPS rep (who was defending leadership behavior). The sexual harassment issue bas been laid bare now as something that is endemic; not just a one-off issue at Grand Canyon, specifics of issues at Yosemite and Yellowstone are now out, as well as previously reported issues at Canaveral Seashore . An investigation was done 16 YEARS ago and the NPS implemented NONE of the recommended steps. Under pressure the NPS rep (Jon Jarvis' deputy director...Jarvis was oddly absent) admitted that as far as he knows the NPS has never fired anyone for sexual harassment.

There are now calls for Jarvis to be fired and not allowed to continue working until his planned retirement in January. I support this. It outrages me that someone who has allowed so much malfeasance (including his own) should be allowed to retire on my tax dollars.

The staffer I met with also requested that those of us who care about such things keep him informed about additional incidents (not just harassment, but also issues like the late-gate tickets, abusive behavior toward visitors, failure to hold public meetings, etc. at Mount Rainier). So if you have issues, please PM me and I will pass along his email address.

I am hopeful that there will, this time, be tangible change and that those responsible will be held fully accountable. Denying public access to parks is one thing. Allowing a widespread culture of sexual harassment and protecting and even promoting perpetrators is disgusting.

Also, I urge you to watch some of the excerpts from the 2+ hour hearing at this link:

oversight.house.gov/hearing/examining-mi...tional-park-service/

Summary articles are here:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp...r-sexual-misconduct/

wildfiretoday.com/2016/09/22/national-pa...t-sexual-harassment/

Thanks for the update. Troublesome culture at many levels..

The staffer I met with also requested that those of us who care about such things keep him informed about additional incidents (not just harassment, but also issues like the late-gate tickets, abusive behavior toward visitors, failure to hold public meetings, etc. at Mount Rainier).

Confused on the mention of late-gate ticket. Harassment, abusive behavior, failures, etc are all indeed wrong and should be reported and the NPS held accountable. A late-gate ticket isn't wrong, no? It's the rules? Break the rules, pay the fine? (not getting into whether or not it's a good rule, they aren't gonna budge on it in the name of safety)

I was verbally abused at the gate, getting there less than ten minutes late after coming down from the summit in February of 2015. Another party was given a ticket after self-rescuing from an injury on the snowfield last winter.

The park was run for 100 years without doing this kind of thing. I don't think there any reason to be nasty toward visitors who are just trying to get down and off the mountain safely. That sort of behavior will also encourage visitors to rush down the road, resulting in more problems, not less.

I was verbally abused at the gate, getting there less than ten minutes late after coming down from the summit in February of 2015. Another party was given a ticket after self-rescuing from an injury on the snowfield last winter.

The park was run for 100 years without doing this kind of thing. I don't think there any reason to be nasty toward visitors who are just trying to get down and off the mountain safely. That sort of behavior will also encourage visitors to rush down the road, resulting in more problems, not less.

I've heard noise about this and other goings on at MRNP HQ ( here on TAY and elsewhere ) since at least 2010. I'm surprised it took this long for it to come out.

Nearly all the NPS employees with whom I've ever interacted were great people.

That said, there are definitely a few bad apples who need to be fired ASAP.

Bring Gator Back!

Troublesome culture at many levels..

The NPS has been a very troubled 'cult'ure for decades.  Biill Briggle was Rainier's hard-drinking, authoritarian superintendent back in the seventies.  He was trying to be the first in the NPS with fifty years service, but retired suddenly after 48.  Rumor had it that he was done in by a sexual harassment scandal.  I wondered how a rank and file employee complaint in such a toxic workplace as the NPS could unseat a powerful veteran who'd previously been a Deputy Director...until I read this comment a few months ago:

"Submitted by Worked for Dave on May 20, 2016

This guy [Uberuaga] is a real tool, not to be trusted, still not sure how he fooled Jarvis as long as he did, but ...it's kinda Karmatic how Dave was done in by a sexual harassment complaint, considering it was his doing when the Supt. of Rainier was ask to retire because of sexual improprities, based on Dave's supplied info and complaints, for which Dave received his promotion to Deputy Supt. of MORA."

www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2016/05/se...uperintendent-retire

One of these days (maybe) we will get a president and congress in favor of an effective executive branch with cabinet officers, agency heads, and even frontline line officers chosen for their competence, integrity, and managerial ability.

another NPS park supt on the chopping block

"Jeff Ruch, executive director of the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, argues that the anguish expressed by some employees stems from the agency’s basic structure.

“The part of the Park Service culture that facilitates these problems is a sort of caste system within a militaristic hierarchy led by officials who believe they can do no wrong,” he said. “That problem is compounded by a decentralized federal agency in which park superintendents have the autonomy of a ship captain.”

“The result is a dysfunctional power dynamic,” he added, “in which problems raised by rank-and-file employees are not allowed to leave the park, or are strongly discouraged.”

Indeed, the Park Service ranks close to the bottom among 320 federal agencies ranked by the annual Best Places to Work in the Federal Government survey. Only one of the Interior Department’s 12 subagencies had a lower score in 2015: the Office of Surface Mining."

LA Times repost

Has Sally Jewel not had enough time? Is she the wrong person for the job? Is the position powerless against the bureaucratic structure anyway? Coming from REI, one of best places to work..

Has Sally Jewel not had enough time?  Is she the wrong person for the job?  Is the position powerless against the bureaucratic structure anyway?  Coming from REI, one of best places to work..

I thought she was a bad pick from the get-go. She was running REI during the Monica bike-fork BS. She seemed like an appointment that looked fancy on paper, but also someone who wouldn't be able to get much of anything done.

Neubacher's wife, who some felt was both protecting him (from her position that at least seemed to be supervisory to him) *and* handing over the names of anonymous reports of malfeasance to him, abruptly retired last week...after the names of all the recent anonymous complainants was reportedly leaked.

Utterly disgusts me that this goes on over and over and that these miscreants are allowed to retire at my expense.