Ranger district faces downsizing

Liz Gupton was at a regular session of the Mineral County Commissioner’s on Wednesday, August 15 to inform the commissioners of potential downsizing in the recreation department of the Superior Ranger District.

Gupton, who works as a trail specialist on a temporary basis, said she was speaking as a concerned citizen on the potential downsizing causing the elimination of what she called a “key” position within the recreation department – Carole Johnson, a recreation specialist designated as a GS9 by the forest service, whose position would go to Plains.

“It’s critical to our recreations department,” Gupton said. “I just feel that it has already been pared down to basic and minimal. I feel that the county will lose out economically if this goes through.”

A letter drafted by Gupton was then presented to the commissioners that expressed the overall concern that workforce reductions would eliminate recreation opportunities in the county and therefore hurt the economy as a whole.

“Given that we have already lost most of our forest products industry, our dependence on recreational/tourist dollars has increased,” the letter reads.

“Therefore, we encourage the forest service to support us in our efforts to capture economic activity off of what remains of this revenue source. We hope the district will continue to provide the same level of service to our visitors and maintenance of the campgrounds, trails, cabin rental and other recreational opportunities available in Mineral County.”

Once signed by commissioners, the letter will be sent to Lolo National Forest Supervisor Debbie Austin. Commissioner Duane Simons was absent from the meeting and as of Friday, Cindy Grimm was still awaiting his signature on the letter.

Dennis Hildebrand asked Gupton what the consequences would be to the county of losing personnel that handles maintenance of the trails and campgrounds.

“That person is going to be on another district,” Gupton said.

“Certainly you can call them, but I think face time is pretty important. The whole thing is the work load for that person will be so great it will be hard to keep up their end of the bargain for Superior.”

Gupton then discussed the efforts of Johnson in her position with the Superior Ranger District – including several programs that Johnson has worked to start and maintain.

“Savenac was going downhill in terms of maintenance,” Gupton said. “So she initiated the Passport in Time Program up there and a whole week of 40 volunteers come up now and volunteer and keep the program alive.”

Johnson has helped with several other programs on top of the Savenac Nursery and Gupton said that those programs are essential to providing funds to the county.

According to Gupton the “ball is rolling” on the reorganization but the final decision has not been made on the matter.

Commissioner Roman Zylawy stated that it was “kind of ironic” that the forest service was considering the reorganization because they were promised more recreation opportunities in the wake of the lumber industry being cut dramatically.