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On a warm and busy morning at the corner of Highway 62 and Park Blvd in downtown Joshua Tree – a growing group of people gathered with signs, music, and a message of “save our parks.”
On Friday, February 14th 2,300 probationary employees were given termination letters by the Department of the Interior following a directive from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The U.S. Department of the Interior is responsible for organizations that oversee public lands and policy, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service.
Six Joshua Tree National Park rangers were part of those terminations – positions that people say are vital to the protection of public lands and the over 3 million visitors that come through Joshua Tree National Park each year.
Resident: “I would say these are real people being hurt right now. Be empathetic to the people who are now unemployed, people who are worried about how to pay their bills. We are here to support them because no one deserves to be fired unfairly.”
Supporters of National Park employees lined the corner outside the Joshua Tree Saloon and the Coyote Corner. It’s also right across from the National Park visitor center and on Park Boulevard which leads into Joshua Tree National Park. It’s a busy area for a tiny town, and on a holiday weekend with temperatures peaking in the low 70’s both foot and vehicle traffic was heavy by 9:00 a.m. The group consisted of public land employees both current and retired, local residents, business owners, and visitors from out of town who felt compelled to pick up a sign and show support to the rangers.
Visitor from Saratoga, New York: “It’s upsetting to us. That’s why we’re here standing on this corner. This is our vacation and we are standing here on this corner to support our public employees and our public parks.”
Resident: “The idea is to protect our most beautiful places and you can’t do that if the parks aren’t open or if there’s not enough staff to handle it. My whole life has been national parks, from one side of this country to the other. There’s just nothing else like it… not much like it in other countries and certainly nothing else like it here.”
While most everyone I talked to gave me their names and where they worked, you could tell that a lot of folks were reticent to identify themselves publicly. The holiday weekend may have felt like a short reprieve from Friday’s mass firing, but further actions from the federal government seemed to be on everyone’s minds.
Resident: “When park rangers come to work everyday they are fighting back everyday by doing their jobs. They are out here just trying to do the work, helping visitors find their way in the park, helping protect park resources doing restoration projects and their worried everyday. The worry is getting in the way of being able to do their jobs. It’s a really challenging place to work right now when you don’t know if you are about to lose your job at the end of the day.”
While the number of terminated employees from the Department of the Interior was reported to be around 2,300 positions, the total number of terminations across the federal government is estimated at over 200,000 people, according to a report by The Hill.
At Monday’s gathering there were concerns for how those firings will impact the employees and their families was forefront, and many were concerned about how having less rangers on staff will impact an already busy national park on the verge of the spring… the busiest season of the year for the hi-desert and most other national parks.
Resident: “It’s super important to recognize that it’s not just the employees its all their families that have moved. We’ve seen a lot of these rangers come in from other parks that have decades of experience and because they just started here they are being let go. So we just want everybody to understand that it’s not just brand new employees, it’s people that have thousands and thousands of hours of training and experience and we don’t want to see them go.”
As the day went on the group steadily grew in size and by the afternoon some were carrying signs in crosswalks as park traffic steadily increased. Monday was President’s Day – a federal holiday that gives most employees the day off.
For those who had recently been fired or feel like their jobs are on the line, Monday’s gathering was just the beginning of what is expected to be a long and uncertain fight to protect public lands and the people who are paid to work them.
