VamoScan: Parks and Wreckreations?
(3/14/25)—Spring’s a poppin’, flowers are blooming, hills and valleys are greening: high time for the US Department of the Interior to nip the National Park Service in the bud, right? 
After a record year of national park visitation (besting some 330m in 2016), 331,863,358 traveled to and through the US park system in 2024—fans now preparing to venture back for more. But who would know it, what with DOGE City furtively, promotionally downplaying the parks’ and Forest Service’s banner popularity?
Cape Hatteras and Great Smoky Mountains to Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Zion have been the most visited as parks thrive nationwide. 
Nevertheless Muskovites continue to fire NPS employees (5-10% of staff, 10% of the Forest Service thus far), and freeze permanent hiring harder than the Yukon Flats Refuge, with more cuts looming in an executive order.
The Course of Lower Expectations.
Fork in the road, or rocks in the road? Either way, travelers who plan on revisiting the nation’s parks and wilderness areas during the busy prime-time spring and summer may find painfully slower going than ever before.
Because the elimination of staffers at these parks, forests and wildlife refuges portends ranger shortages, information center shutdowns and curtailed safety facilities—from search-and-rescue to fire fighting and prevention. Picture lodging/reservation snags, longer entrance lines, closed trails and swamped campgrounds, unkempt public facilities, more litter, less backcountry support. Not to mention overwrought, less helpful NPS workers preoccupied with job insecurity, paying operational expenses out of their own pockets. Let alone damage/erosion of lesser tended natural treasures and ecosystems, or the economic impact on neighboring businesses.
Outraged, summarily fired workers have already been protesting at park sites, questioning who will be around to clear trails and grounds, repair buildings and bridges, clean toilets near and far aground. 
Interior Department officials counter that seasonal and temporary workers will be hired ‘by the thousands’ in coming weeks—but in time, and with adequate experience and expertise to adequately, safely serve the visiting hordes?
It’s a bit too early to tell who and what’s left standing in this bloomin’ high/low-country DOGE ball showdown. So in any event, don’t forget to pack the Charmin…(MTC…)
Parking Violation #1.
Case in point: Word has it some heavy Silicon Valley tech bros, so-called sovereign snipers and Network State operatives, are intent on hacking in and essentially ‘recoding’ the Presidio of San Francisco. Namely tearing it right down to the studs and shredding the fundamental park platform—resetting it into something on the order of a “Freedom City”.
Meanwhile, DOGE mobs seek to terminate the Presidio Trust altogether—as if they even know the meaning of the word. 
Here this 1,500-acre jewel of a national park graces the northwest tip of San Francisco, and has since 1994. But the Presidio itself (named a National Historic Landmark in 1962) actually dates back to 1776, when Spain built El Presidio Real to solidify its position in Alta California, displacing many of the Yelamu Tribe of Ramaytush Ohlone Peoples inhabiting the territory for thousands of years.
Mexico gained control of the Presidio as a military fort from 1822-1846, when US Army forces took over upon winning the Mexican-American War. HQs/units such as the 6th Army proceeded to occupy the Presidio through the Civil War, Spanish-AmericanWar, two World Wars, Korea, Viet Nam campaigns and Operation Desert Storm in 1991, standing down entirely by 1995 after 219 years.
Congress passed the Presidio Trust bill with a House vote of 404-4 in 1996, adding $23m annual subsidies through 2013 to aid the transition from a deactivated army base to the National Park Service, PT taking over this 
centerpiece of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area by 1998. The Army pitched in $100m to help pave the remedial road from asphalt and fossil fuel toxicity to the Presidio’s environmental roots of grass/woodlands, dunes, and saltwater creeks, lakes and marshes—wildlife soon reclaiming more natural habitats, 350 species strong.
Making It Pay.
A key congressional stipulation however: The Presidio had to pay for itself beyond 2013, thereupon ending an annual federal allotment for park-wide renewal and upkeep (already reaching that goal by 2006). A unique arrangement to be sure: establishing the Presidio Trust as a “…wholly owned government corporation (functioning) as an innovative public-private partnership that minimizes cost to the US taxpayer and makes efficient use of private sector resources.”
In return, the Trust was charged with responsibility for security, maintenance 
and leasing, achieving self-sufficiency for this ‘small city’ within The City. Which it has been doing fiscally, creatively, painstakingly—duly ‘preserving the culture and historic integrity of the Presidio for public use’. Namely rehabbing/restoring and drawing commercial and residential lease/rental revenue from over 800 buildings and workspaces; as well as income from lodging, restaurants, events, gyms, its historic golf course and other amenities. The unique urban park attracts 9.5m visitors annually, to the tune of more than $350m net revenue, 2014 on, essentially paying its own way year upon year.
Blurred Vision?
Still, DOGErs have labelled the Presidio Trust “wasteful and unnecessary”, seeking to squeeze PT out of the managerial picture under a “Commencing the Reduction of Federal Bureaucracy” order. Others call this simply a personal
political jape at Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who has shepherded the bipartisan Presidio legislation from its mid-90s inception—back when Republican foes urged auctioning off the stunningly beautiful public land to real estate developers. Nevertheless, the Trust currently contends only Congress has the power to legally dissolve it, sooo we will see on that…
Just the same, further privatization efforts have periodically sprouted like crabgrass, not least the latest ‘vision’ of DOGE and certain Silicon Valley disrupters to control/halt/delete today’s Presidio in favor of a ‘game changing’ Freedom City of innovation—with various renderings already floating about.
Whatever the FC crowd’s plots and plans, VamigrĂ©Â is hoping the Presidio Trust prevails once again, or that any such unicorny vision doesn’t end up ‘disrupting’ the park’s natural/historical splendor and precious Golden Gate views.
Otherwise it might be a scenario forged via ‘in DOGE we trust’. (MTC…)
