PORT TOWNSEND — Preserving 367-acre Old Fort Townsend State Park is one thing ¬– managing it is another, say trust land organizations interested in saving the nature preserve and recreational area.
As part of a $10 million cost-cutting effort ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire, Washington State Parks wants to turn the state park south of Port Townsend over to local interests rather than closing it.
State Parks has proposed closing or transferring ownership of 13 parks in the system.
The state Legislature will consider the proposal during the session that begins today.
Two of the parks — Old Fort Townsend and Bogachiel near Forks — are in the North Olympic Peninsula.
Parks
With Jefferson County officials watching their own fragile bottom line, how such a transfer of Old Fort Townsend State Park would happen is anyone’s guess at this point.
“Managing park lands isn’t what we’ve done in the past,” said Owen Fairbank, president of Jefferson Land Trust, which in August entered into a partnership with The Trust for Public Land, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission and Port Townsend Paper Corporation to protect 250 acres of biologically rich land and shoreline between the paper mill and Old Fort Townsend State Park.
The move, in effect, expanded the park.
Jefferson Land Trust also maintains in perpetuity about 90 acres of the forest, The Janis Bulis Forest Preserve, a pet memorial park adjacent to Old Fort Townsend State Park.
Awaiting budget
The fate of the Old Fort Townsend State Park is unknown until a state budget comes back to Washington State Parks in May, said Peter Herzog, the Washington State Parks planner who delivered the bad news to Jefferson County residents Thursday night.
Herzog, who has been instrumental in facilitating long-range planning for Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, said Old Fort Townsend State Park, about 2 miles south of Port Townsend off state Highway 20, is one of 13 parks listed in the state’s cost-cutting proposal.
Gregoire’s proposed 2009-2011 budget asks State Parks to take a 10 percent budget cut, or $10 million, mostly in staffing and operations.
Gregoire recently proposed slashing more than $3 billion from state funds affecting education, social services, prisons, health programs, state parks and perhaps the second ferry for the Port Townsend-Keystone route.
Herzog explained that a $3.5 million savings proposed by state parks would “come from transferring 13 park properties in all to local governments and/or conservation partners or nonprofit organizations.”
Herzog said transfers of parks have been completed before.
Properties such as Moses Lake, Mukilteo, West Hylebo and Heart Lake have all previously been absorbed by cities and counties, he said.
Jefferson County Commissioner John Austin, D-Port Ludlow, attended the meeting and urged residents to contact their influential state lawmakers.
As a member of the House ways and means committee, Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam and House majority leader, will lead the Legislature’s creation of its own budget, revising the governor’s proposal when the session begins today.
“We depend on those parks to attract visitors to our area,” Kessler said recently. Her 24th district covers Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Austin, who frequently uses Old Fort Townsend, said he was disappointed in the announcement that the park had been proposed for transfer.
Jefferson County, facing its own financial troubles after budget cuts and layoffs late last year, is not in a position to acquire and manage another park, he said.
County parks cutbacks
The county already faces the prospect of maintenance and operations cutbacks at its existing 17 parks and recreation areas.
No meetings have been scheduled addressing the status of Bogachiel State Park, south of Forks in Clallam County, but Forks Mayor Nedra Reed last week said the park was vital to her community and she will petition the state to keep the location funded.
Fairbank and Heidi Eisenhour, executive director for Jefferson Land Trust, said a meeting with State Parks officials had not yet been scheduled, but that talks are likely to happen soon.
“We hope to work with them,” Fairbank said. “We’re certainly not at the point of getting involved but we are listening to the conversation.
“I appreciate state parks making it a public process.”
Eisenhour said she was uncertain whether Jefferson Land Trust was even staffed to manage and protect a park property as large as Old Fort Townsend.
“We’re very interested in the land trust’s protection of Old Fort Townsend State Park,” she said. “But it’s not clear to me that we are the best candidate for it.”
Support only
Karen Macdonald, spokeswoman for The Trust for Public Lands in Seattle, said the organization could not take on the long-term stewardship of Old Fort Townsend State Park.
“Are we interested in the parks? Yes, because they’re like our babies,” she said.
“We will do what we can to help people overcome the problem in whatever way we can. We will give our support to whatever local initiative that comes about.”
She said The Trust for Public Lands could offer strategies that could lead to a solution.
The heavily forested Old Fort Townsend State Park, which features 3,960 feet of saltwater shoreline on Port Townsend Bay, has a rich military history dating from pioneer days.
It has 6.5 miles of forested and shoreline hiking trails — with boating, diving, fishing and crabbing access, ball fields and a children’s play area — and occupies more than a third of the original Fort Townsend built in 1856 by the U.S. Army for the protection of settlers.
The fort was closed between 1859 and 1874. It thrived until 1895, when fire destroyed the barracks. The property was used as an enemy-munitions defusing station during World War II.
State Parks took custody of the premises in 1953.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
