Esteemed member Frederick Hawthorne
Esteemed fellow GDG members:
Please accept my apology in advance for this rather lengthy post but
I'm becoming somewhat alarmed by the rather sweeping allegations made the
past several days re: proposed Visitor Center and what appears to be painted
as a NPS deception to keep documents from the public. To paraphrase the
late Henry Hunt: "Cease firing! Conserve the long-range ammunition! No
infantry is yet in sight. The "enemy" artillery is clouded in smoke and our
fire is doing no appreciable damage! Hold your fire until a target comes in
view." Now, before the "Hancocks" among you begin to ride along the line to
countermand these sensible orders let me explain:
Most of us, at this point, seem to be fence sitters on this issue,
albeit leaning one way or the other. That is as it should be. As I said in
a previous post and as I've maintained in the chat discussions - we don't
know enough one way or the other to make an informed decision. We still
don't. Yet some now seem all too willing to start yanking the lanyards to
fire at some as yet obscure target. Folks, there is no sinister plot here,
no hidden agendas. No information is forthcoming because there is no more
detailed information yet to put out. The current powers-that-be at the park
are not the same ones who were here when the railroad cut fiasco was brewing
nor did they (or their predecessors) have anything to do with the tower
going up (thank the courts for that). We should all stop painting every
National Park Service employee with the broad brush of suspicion and
incompetence because of the past actions of some. There are quite a few very
fine and quite competent individuals running this park despite unfounded
allegations to the contrary.
Well why isn't there more information? Permit me to try to
unentangle the bureaucrateese a bit. First of all there are two distinct
processes going on here, separate but closely intertwined. They are the
Gettysburg GMP process as well as the on-going RFP for private-public
partnerships at Gettysburg.
Periodically the park planners must set down, in writing, their
goals for managing and maintaining the park's resources in accordance with
their two-fold mission of preservation and interpretation. This is called a
"General Managment Plan" or GMP for short. The current one was developed in
the early 1980s and is vastly out-of-date. VC or no VC, the park would be
going through the process of developing a new GMP now whether this issue
were on the table or not.
GMP's exist to guide park administrators, present and future. Any
major projects or initiatives must be set down in a GMP before any detailed
planning can take place to bring the goal to fruition. For example, several
GMP's back a stated park service goal was to build a new Visitor Center
complex on the "Butterfield Farm" north of town (near the James Gettys
Elementary School and where Buford's skirmishers met the advance of Ewell's
people on July 1). The plan stated, in general tones, that a VC would be
put out there with an understanding the present day Cyclo eventually would
be removed. Local politics centered around a Route 30 bypass (still a hot
issue 25 years later) kept this plan from going any further so no additional
work was done to develop specific site plans. The early 80's GMP did not
keep this as a major goal feeling that no federal funding was forthcoming
anyway nor was there any liklihood of a Route 30 bypass to feed visitors
into the new center.
Now the situation exists where inadequate and outdated facilities,
inappropriate curatorial storage, improper climate control, etc. are
threatening cultural resources every bit as important as the park itself.
Mr. Monahan stepped forward with a creative proposal to solve the problem
and again the park planners were faced with the very real possibility of
being able to resolve several major problems at once as well as deal with a
long term goal of removing visual intrusions from the main Union battle
line. In order to allow this to take place, a new GMP was required to
incorporate these goals once again and allow for detailed planning.
Now the second major movement to take place was that the uproar over
the Monahan proposal forced the park to step back and open the process up to
a more competitive and creative bidding strategy which, in turn, delayed
further the writing of a new GMP. You have to put in the GMP such things as
the simple fact you wish to develop a new VC, where you wish to put it and
why that is superior to its existing site. Until all bids were in and
evaluated, no one knew some of the answer to those questions. The GMP was
put on hold and a detailed "Request for Proposals" ("RFP" in bureaucratese)
was developed using a series of public meetings to allow for concerns to be
put forth and incorporated. This RFP told potential bidders how their
proposals would be evaluated, what would and what would not be acceptable,
what federal laws needed to be considered, etc. Most of the latter part of
1996 and a good chunk of this year were used to allow bidders to develop
plans and to evaluate each of those plans. Finally one was chosen - the
Kinsley proposal. Now that the park knew where a VC would be built and
generally how, they could complete the GMP planning process, incorporating
that general information. (This RFP, incidently, is a public document. I've
noted where some members mentioned having trouble getting this. There is no
excuse for that. Keep up the pressure and get a copy. If you can stay
awake long enough to plow through it, it gives insights into what a future
VC will and will not look like.)
There is a public GMP meeting on Dec. 17th at which point the park
will again detail their six general alternatives to future park managment.
Over the next several months they will develop a written draft of the GMP
document which will be issued for public review and comment. This will lay
out a variety of management alternatives including the moving of the VC
which will be offered as the preferred option. Undoubtedly, several other
public meetings will be held to allow for additional comment through the
early part of 1998 and this period will last at least 60 days which, I
believe, is mandated as part of the process. Following all that the final
General Management Plan will be signed and issued. Possibly by mid-summer 1998.
So what does all of this have to do with the Kinsley proposal in
general and the Levan tract of land specifically? I can almost hear the
shot being rammed home now!!! The Kinsley group has basically now been put
on hold just as the new General Management Plan was for several years.
Until that plan is completed, approved at all necessary levels of the NPS,
and signed, there is little Kinsley or National Geographic can do. Phone
them all you want. You'll continue to get "no comment" because they are on
hold. I seriously doubt they have anyone on their internal staffs actively
working on this project. They have an option on the land BUT it is still
private property owned neither by Kinsley nor the NPS. "Boundary" or no
boundary that's the reality. We've been told its about a 45 acre tract with
only a portion of it earmarked for use by the new VC complex but not which
portion. Although I do not know any of the Kinsley participants personally I
can certainly assure you they have no intention of sinking a lot of money
into this process until such time as they are reasonably assured it will go
forth. And until the GMP is signed, sealed, and delivered - they do not have
that assurance.
The documents which some of you now seem to accuse the NPS of
'hiding' are the very details we need to make an informed decision. Folks,
they don't exist in any but perhaps the most vague, conceptual form! We may
see in the next month or so preliminary sketches and site plans but even
those, if they exist or are being developed, will be tentative at best. The
detailed stuff is what the Kinsley group needs to spend money developing.
They need to pay for a detailed site survey. They need to pay to develop
architectural drawings, site elevations, building footprints, parking lot
details, traffic surveys, access routes, vegetation screening,
archaeological surveys, environmental impact studies, etc. - all of which
are required by various provisions of the RFP and all of which will require
a great initial outlay of money. Now why would anyone go to this great
expense on land they don't currently own until they are personally assured
the NPS isn't going to say "thanks, but no thanks." Kinsley won't folks. I
doubt any of the other "unsuccessful" bidders (with the possible exception
of Mr. Monahan) would either.
You might ask - weren't these items included as part of each bid?
No. Therefore ask all you want. Even if you get them to send you a copy of
the precise bid Kinsley submitted you won't find those items. The NPS said
in the RFP how big a facility they required. The partners could figure how
much space they needed. Its a fairly simple matter to estimate the size of
parking facitilites needed based on crowd estimates. Contrators do this all
the time. Thus they could say "we can build you such and such a size
building, on this piece of property (which we don't currently own but have
an option to buy) with sufficient parking to meet your needs at
approximately this cost. And here's how we're going to pay for it. And
here's what you'll get out of it. Here's what we'll get out of it. That is
all that was required of a bidder. That's what the NPS based their decision on.
Once the GMP is completely finished (estimated mid-summer 1998) and
the basic concept of moving the VC from Cemetery Hill to a portion of the
Levan tract is included, then and only then would active contract
negotiations take place between Kinsley and the NPS specifically detailing
how the physical structure will look. It is then that we all can see for
ourselves what impact the structure will have. It is then we will see if
its a "7-story" Imax or an "11 story" Imax or if the entire structure is
sufficiently buried in the low area the Levan Tract provides. It is then
that we will see how access roads may intrude on the ridge line along which
some Union artillery were staged for the Culp's Hill fight. It is then we'll
see how vegetation screening is developed to completely hide the entire
facility and its parking lots from public view. It is ONLY then that we can
begin to make informed decisions as to whether this proposal, overall, is of
sufficient benefit to be acceptable or not. Until then you're only firing
blindly into the smoke which is probably doing no one any good.
Alright you "Hancocks" out there, if you still feel strongly about
it - order those batteries to reopen! Hopefully we'll still have enough ammo
left to decimate that nasty infantry IF they get too close to our (Baltimore
Pike Artillery) lines!
Fred Hawthorne