PORT ANGELES — A two-thirds majority of the Port Angeles City Council has voted to support federal legislation that would tackle the backlog of maintenance in Olympic and other national parks.
The council voted 4-2 Tuesday to authorize Mayor Sissi Bruch to sign a two-page letter from local mayors to the state’s Congressional delegation in support of the Restore Our Parks Act and its House companion bill, the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act.
“We have a national park in our backyard, and it is incredibly important that it would be maintained,” Bruch said in Tuesday’s council meeting.
Council members Mike French, Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, Deputy Mayor Kate Dexter and Bruch voted to endorse the letter.
Council members Cherie Kidd and Jim Moran voted no, citing concerns about the way the money would be spent and the 10 percent administration fee.
Council member Michael Merideth was absent Tuesday.
Moran said Olympic National Park would receive just $110,000 of the $1.3 billion minus an “outrageous” 10 percent overhead.
“It’s an awful lot of money and a very little benefit to our local park,” Kidd said after researching the bills. “I was disappointed.”
French said the $1.3 billion figure is the maximum amount that would be allocated every year for five years.
“That’s creating a fund that then can be used to do these things, backlogs of deferred maintenance and things like that,” French said.
“Likely those projects will be competitively ranked. So it’s not like the money is divided equally among all the parks. It’s ‘What is the greatest need? What has the greatest benefit? What projects have the lowest impact?’
“So it’s not just $1.3 billion, and we’re not just getting $110,000,” French added.
“And No. 1, that’s a bad way to evaluate legislation. No offense, but I want to understand: ‘Is the legislation doing a good thing that’s needed and useful?’ not ‘Does this give my community a bunch of money?’ ”
The National Park Service has nearly $12 billion in deferred maintenance, including a $398 backlog in Washington state, according to the letter.
“This includes crucial repairs to aging historic structures and thousands of miles of roads and trails, bridges, tunnels, sewers, drainage and other vital infrastructure,” the letter states.
The National Park Service has 61 national parks and 419 total units like monuments and historic sites, according to www.nps.gov.
The federal legislation is supported by U.S. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Seattle, and Maria Cantwell, D-Mountlake Terrace, and U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor.
Kilmer, a Port Angeles native who represents the 6th Congressional District — which includes the North Olympic Peninsula — co-sponsored the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act last July.
“My first concern was I didn’t want to be stepping on a partisan landmine, and this is a clearly bipartisan bill,” French said before listing the Republican, Democratic and Independent co-sponsors of the House bill.
“This has wide bipartisan support.”
Dexter said the legislation would benefit Olympic National Park and other federal sites that Port Angeles residents visit.
“I think it’s OK for us occasionally to think bigger than us,” Dexter said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@ peninsuladailynews.com.
