Paying to play may be the new reality

18 Smoky Mountain News

Opinion Paying to play may be the new reality

The proposed parking fee for visitors to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has users — especially locals in the gateway communities whose family histories are intertwined with the Smokies — understandably upset. The identity of the Smokies and those who live near it are more closely aligned than at other national parks. Locals have roamed freely (save for some camping fees) for several generations on land that was taken with the promise that there would never be a charge for visiting.

The devil is in the details, and those angered by the proposal should not blame park officials who are desperate for some means of repairing and maintaining crumbling infrastructure in a park whose visitation has risen by 57 percent in the last decade, while its budget has decreased when inflation is factored in. The women and men of the National Park Service are doing yeoman’s work to ensure visitors can enjoy their time in what is one of this country’s great wilderness areas despite these budget realities.

No, it’s our representatives in Congress and the White House who should bear the brunt of our collective ire. They are the ones who have led us to this precipice by their refusal to adequately fund the country’s most popular national park. Here’s a paragraph from Outdoors Editor Holly Kays’ cover story (page 28) in this week’s edition:

Scott McLeod Editor

In 2011, the park received $18.95 million in federal funding, with that number inching up to $20.66 million for the current fiscal year. President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2023 would substantially increase the dollar amount to $24.09 million, but even that wouldn’t give the park the same buying power it had 10 years ago. In March 2022 dollars, the $18.95 million it received in 2011 would be worth $24.74 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation Calculator.

The Smokies had 14.1 million visits last year. The secondmost popular park is Zion in Utah, which clocked in at 5 million visitors. All the top 10 most visited national parks charge entrance fees, and that money is allowed to stay in that particular park for upkeep and staffing. With no increases in federal funding and no entrance fees, the GSMNP has accumulated a backlog of maintenance needs that totals nearly $240 million. Try to fathom that — a park whose budget is $20.66 million in 2022 has more than 10 times that amount just in overdue maintenance needs.

As many know, the parking fee proposal is in lieu of an entrance fee, which the Smokies can’t enact. Deeds from Tennessee when roads were handed over to the park in the 1950s prevent a “toll or license fee” from ever being enacted to use the roads, and another federal law from 1992 bolstered those restrictions to include the entire park. The current proposal, dubbed “Park it Forward,” would allow those driving through the park to continue to do so at no charge. Once you stop and get out, there would be a fee to park.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the crown jewel of this place we call home. Protecting it for future generations is a legacy we should embrace for both environmental and economic reasons. A $5 parking fee or $40 annual parking pass is not a game-changer for the great majority of park users. The truth is that something has to give: either this park goes to pot in terms of infrastructure or — if we want to preserve it — the federal government steps in or some kind of local fees have to be generated.

It’s a bit too easy to say we should bombard our congressional representatives with complaints about their lack of support for the park because there’s little hope they’ll respond. This problem has persisted for a couple of decades. But that’s what we should do. It does no good to blame the Park Service folks who came up with the proposal as their motives are clear — saving the park. That’s a mission we can all agree on, and if this fee is the best and only option, then we should support it. (Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com.)

HCAE policy excludes parents

To the Editor:

Although I have no school-aged children, I read with interest the article about the Haywood County Association of Educators coming up with a new proposal for the review of instructional materials that a parent has found objectionable. The proposed changes would entail the principal forwarding the parental complaint to the building level committee. This committee would be made up of “one media specialist, three educators in related fields, two administrators and two students.”

“If the complainant is not satisfied with the committee’s determination, they may appeal to the superintendent,” who would form a similar committee for the review.

My question is why is no one representing the parents of students on these committees? Is the school system trying to shut out parents from the educational process? Len May Waynesville

LETTERS

Let’s hope America can think again

To the Editor:

Every once in a while an every-day experience provides the perfect example of a major issue and one may not even realize it. I usually wear a baseball hat around Waynesville. I generally get positive comments about it.

On this particular day a woman commented, ““I love your hat and what it says!” I usually follow-up with the origins of the hat. When I did, her response was “I hate your hat!”

Now to my hat and why it caused this reversal. My hat is royal blue and says in large letters “Make America Think Again.” The problem arose when I explained, as I do each time I get a comment, that it is a Hillary Clinton campaign hat from 2016.

Her instant reversal epitomizes the polarization, tribalism, and “lack” of woke that is infecting this country at the moment. The hat slogan speaks for itself to all people.

Let’s all hope that America can learn to “Think Again.”

The woke family is bad for U.S.

To the Editor:

The nuclear family in America has been the backbone of its strength. This sacred unit has been under attack since 1965 when then President Lyndon Baines Johnson along with its laws and policies of “The Great Society” gradually redefined “family.”

Children need their parents’ guidance and a childhood. It is not appropriate for young children to be educated by schools or woke corporations about what adults do behind closed doors regardless of sexual orientation. Parents, grandparents, and or legal guardians have the duty to decide when, where and how to teach them about not only sex itself, but also the responsibilities and respect for one another that should be the centerpiece of this discussion. Parents are the final arbiters for their children. The line has been drawn.

Schools, teacher unions, and woke corporations need to cease, desist, and finally come to this realization.