The park service closed and barricaded the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. Issa: Park Service chief should resign

The head of the National Park Service should step down over his handling of the government shutdown, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa told POLITICO on Wednesday.

“Three strikes and you should be out,” Issa (R-Calif.) said after a five-hour hearing in which he and other Republicans lambasted park service Director Jonathan Jarvis for closing monuments on the National Mall, as well as the agency’s earlier handling of the sequester and its decision to let Occupy Wall Street protesters camp out on federal land. “He blew it on sequestration. He blew it on Occupy, and now he admits he doesn’t even think it was his responsibility to plan to mitigate [the shutdown’s harm].”


Asked if he thinks Jarvis should resign, Issa said: “Yes, I believe he should resign. But the better term probably is I think he should retire because he no longer serves the public in their interest.”

( POLITICO interview: WWII Memorial visitors, vets on closure and shutdown)

Earlier in the hearing, Jarvis took responsibility for closing sites like the World War II Memorial, saying his almost entirely furloughed staff didn’t have enough people to keep them open safely. But he jabbed back at Issa’s repeated complaints that the agency hadn’t planned well enough for the shutdown that took effect Oct. 1.

“What I do is I open parks and operate parks, not planning for a closure,” Jarvis said.

Issa called that remark “a sign that he doesn’t care about keeping the parks open and minimizing damage and serving the public.”

In earlier testimony Wednesday, Jarvis told members of Issa’s panel and the House Natural Resources Committee that the White House didn’t dictate how the park service handled the closures, although he said he and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell had “presented” its shutdown plans to a White House official during a telephone conversation.

( See POLITICO's full coverage of the government shutdown)

“The monuments and memorials on the National Mall do not take care of themselves,” Jarvis told the lawmakers. “Our rangers are there to prevent vandalism and impact to the monuments and the memorials. All of those rangers have been furloughed.”

Jarvis said the furloughs hit all but 12 of the 300 park service employees who usually work on the Mall. “As much as there has been talk of open-air monuments that are unmanned, they are not unoccupied,” he said.

Jarvis, who was testifying under subpoena, said he didn’t know whom he had spoken to at the White House about the shutdown plans but promised to provide that information to lawmakers.

Issa and other Republicans at the hearing accused Jarvis’ agency of showing a pattern of apparent political bias, stretching as far back as its decision in 2011-12 to allow Occupy Wall Street protesters to camp out and “defecate” at Washington’s McPherson Square. They questioned why the park service has barricaded sites like the Lincoln Memorial that stayed open during the 1995-96 government shutdowns.

Democrats responded by blaming Republicans for the shutdown and denouncing the GOP-called hearing — held on the eve of a possible default on the national debt — as “political theater.”

( Also on POLITICO: Lessons from last shutdown don't apply)

“I’ll show you who is responsible, right here,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources, after whipping out a mirror and holding it up to the Republican lawmakers.

“If you want to spend your time here dissecting individual decisions about what monuments are open and which are closed, let me save you some time,” DeFazio told the GOP members. “The national park system is surprisingly part of our national government, which you shut down.”

But Issa isn’t done yet. He issued a subpoena to Jarvis on Wednesday demanding records including “all documents referring or relating to the National Park Service process for handling proposals for budget modifications related to sequestration.” Additional document requests will be coming later, his staff said.

In lambasting Jarvis’s handling of the shutdown, Issa cited a column in The Washington Times that quoted an anonymous “angry Park Service ranger” as saying that “we’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can.”

“If true, and I have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of that quote, it is indeed disgusting and despicable that the park service would do this,” Issa said at the hearing, being held jointly by his committee and natural resources.

Jarvis rejected the quote.

“I have no idea where that information came from. That’s hearsay,” he said. “I am in communication with my employees and they do not believe that. To say that this is the belief of the National Park Service employees is incorrect.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on Issa’s Oversight panel, said the World War II Memorial is just one part of a government that could reopen if Republicans would allow it.

“The World War II Memorial is a stunning and beautiful monument, but it is made out of marble and fountains,” Cummings said. “Do you know what a more significant tribute to our veterans is? Do you know what really honors our nation’s heroes for their service and sacrifice? Providing them with the benefits they earned after suffering injuries in combat. Paying them the pensions they need to cover rent, utility bills and food. And guaranteeing the assistance they rely on to stay off the streets and, in some cases, stay alive.”

But Issa said the fundamental issue is that the park service is disobeying its mandate to never “allow itself to be subjected to political influence.”

“We’re here simply to discover whether or not the park service has met its legal obligation on one hand under the lack of an appropriations bill, but on the other hand done everything it can to mitigate the effects on the American people,” Issa said.

Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) sounded a similar note, arguing that the park service’s response to the shutdown has been marked by “an attempt to make the shutdown as painful and as visible as possible” and “an attempt to squash the ensuing bad PR.”

The World War II Memorial closure drew attention after veterans who traveled to Washington on Honor Flights had to go around barriers to get to the monument. The park service eventually said the veterans could go to the memorials to conduct “First Amendment activities.”

The memorial was back in the spotlight last weekend, when tea party favorites Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined hundreds of protesters in a rally where demonstrators tore down some of the black metal barricades and stacked them in front of the White House.

Despite that furor, POLITICO reported Tuesday that veterans streaming into Washington to see the monument don’t face any major obstacles in their visits, and many complain that they are being used for political gain.

Jarvis said that under the shutdown, he is required by law to reduce park service staffing to those who protect life and property. As a result of that requirement, Jarvis said he was forced to close the national parks. But Jarvis said he issued an order on the first day of the shutdown allowing access to monuments and memorials for “First Amendment activities,” a move that has allowed veterans to visit the World War II Memorial.

“Turning away visitors is not our culture or our DNA, and we all look forward to re-opening all 401 national parks,” he testified. Jarvis said the national parks are “incredible economic drivers,” generating “an estimated $32 million per day impact in communities near national parks and contributing $76 million each day to the national economy.”

And he said the park service understands the World War II Memorial’s importance to veterans.

“We are proud of the special relationship that we share with America’s veterans, and we know that we will be here to protect those memorials now and for future generations,” he said. He added, “We know that visits of America’s World War II veterans to the memorial are pilgrimages and that many will them only make once.”