National park layoffs assailed by off-duty rangers and community members in SoCal protests

Yahoo

02-03-2025

Hundreds of people gathered at national park sites in Southern California on Saturday to protest the Trump administration's mass firing of federal employees and to voice fears about the future of America's public lands.
"I don't want a McDonald's popping up in Yosemite," said Marla Stultz, 59, of Victorville as she waved an American flag near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, where a crowd of about 200 people had gathered by mid-morning. "I don't want condos with a view looking into Sequoia National Park."
Passing drivers leaned on their horns to show support.
At King Gillette Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles filmmaker Cris Graves led a group of more than 100 protesters in chants and then asked the crowd to gather in small groups to share why public lands mattered to them. Attendees shared both memories and fears, including whether public lands will be opened up for oil and gas drilling and other industrial uses.
Omar Pichardo, a field organizer with Council of Mexican Federations in North America, attended the protest to raise awareness of the group's fear that undocumented residents could be threatened by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while trying to visit federal parks.
'People are not going to be feeling safe in the parks anymore, and so that's our biggest concern, right? People are not feeling welcome in these spaces anymore when people used to feel welcome and safe,' Pichardo said.
Some protesters moved outside the park to a nearby street corner, where one attendee booed as a Tesla Cybertruck rolled past. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency initiative that is spearheading attempts to cut federal spending and downsize the federal government.
The Southern California protests were among those staged at roughly 140 national park sites around the country Saturday by Resistance Rangers, a group of about 700 off-duty park rangers with a stated mission to save public lands and protect civil servants. About 15 protests were planned at California public lands, with another planned Wednesday at Ventura Harbor to support Channel Islands National Park.
'This is just the beginning,' said an organizer with Resistance Rangers who helped stage the Joshua Tree protest. 'We're trying to get the word out, trying to make some sort of movement and change.'
"One of the things park rangers do best is organizing and spreading education, and that's what we've been doing," added the organizer, who asked to remain anonymous over concerns of retaliation.
Heather Felix was clad in a butterfly cape as she jogged between intersections with her 3 year-old goldendoodle Hazelnut, who sported matching wings and a pink mohawk.
The 42-year-old engineer, who lives in the San Bernardino Mountains, said she believes federal workers were fired illegally and wanted to show them they have the community's support.
"It's important to be vocal," she said. "You can't just sit behind and let the billionaires, the oligarchs take over."
The protests come after many federal agencies fired nearly all their probationary employees last month as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to dramatically shrink the federal workforce. Those probationary employees included both workers who were relatively new to federal employment, as well as some longer-tenured employees who had recently changed jobs.
Roughly 1,000 National Park Service workers were fired. Among them were six employees of Joshua Tree National Park, which is now operating at a 30% vacancy rate because it had many job openings to begin with, said Chance Wilcox, California desert program manager at the National Parks Conservation Assn. Those lost included fee collectors who also help direct traffic and respond to incidents, he said.
'My understanding is that the fire station is currently vacant, which is a huge concern considering the fuel load in the park,' he added.
Officials also fired about eight staffers from the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, including workers focused on archaeology, wildlife research and emergency medical response, according to Deanna Armbruster, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Fund.
Several of those workers attended the protest at King Gillette Ranch, including Katie Preston, a park ranger who until Feb. 14 worked as an archaeological technician, surveying the land for natural and cultural resources.
Preston grew up in Thousand Oaks, so the Santa Monica Mountains were her backyard. She came frequently with her family and, once an employee, realized she was surveying areas she'd visited as a child.
'I really, really loved being a park ranger,' Preston said.
Preston's colleague Kallie Martinez, a park ranger who worked in special park use and park safety, was also at the protest.
Martinez had been working in the Santa Monica Mountains since 2020, but started with the park service in March. She was considered probationary because her most recent position started in June.
Martinez learned she'd been fired in the last four minutes of her shift on Feb. 14. She had spent the day in an EMT class, paid for by the park service so that she could take over emergency medical services at the park. She got home from the class and found the email telling her she'd been terminated 'based on performance.' Martinez's supervisors, she said, had told her she was doing great work and well above her pay grade.
Martinez lived in park service housing and now has 60 days to move out. She loses her health insurance 30 days from her firing date.
Martinez was one of only two federal workers at Santa Monica Mountains responding to emergencies, like lost hikers and injured climbers. Although L.A. County emergency workers or sheriff's deputies can respond, they do not know the park like Martinez and her supervisor, she said. Plus, they don't have keys to open gates.
'I know this park better than I know my hometown,' said Martinez, who is originally from Twentynine Palms. 'I just want to be able to help people. I care about this park, and I care about the visitors that visit this park and the experience that they have, and I just really wanted to enhance that experience for people.'
Both Preston and Martinez said it meant a lot to see so many protesters at the park.
That included L.A. resident Noemi Arias, 12, who made her own sign for the protest, which read 'Protect public lands' and included a drawing of Smokey Bear. 'Rehire Smokey and friends,' the sign demanded.
'So many kids have magical experiences at national parks, and we need to protect them for future generations,' she said.
A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday found that the mass firings of probationary government employees were likely unlawful, ruling that the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to order other agencies to fire employees. U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted temporary relief to a coalition of labor unions and advocacy groups that had sued to stop the terminations and ordered the OPM to notify federal agencies of his ruling.
But the decision did not immediately reinstate fired employees or guarantee that more terminations won't take place in the future.
The National Park Service didn't respond to questions about the implications of the ruling, but said in a statement that it is hiring seasonal workers 'as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.' The agency last week received approval to hire 7,700 seasonal employees in a reversal of an earlier plan to eliminate thousands of those workers.
The White House and Office of Personnel Management didn't respond to messages seeking comment on the judge's ruling and the rationale behind the firings. President Trump has previously said the cuts were needed to rein in the federal deficit, which hit $1.8 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year.
'We're cutting down the size of government. We have to,' Trump said this week during his first Cabinet meeting. 'We're bloated. We're sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren't doing their job.'
More terminations are expected in the weeks ahead, per a Feb. 11 executive order from Trump that instructed agency heads to undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force. A memo from the federal budget and personnel offices providing additional guidance on the order directed agencies to develop reorganization plans by March 13.
Already, some national parks have been forced to cut hours or curtail services. Yosemite National Park suspended the sale of summer online reservations for its most popular campgrounds. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado announced it would close Mondays and Tuesdays. Saguaro National Park in Arizona and Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas said their visitor centers would be shuttered one to two days a week.
The city of Twentynine Palms on Tuesday took a precautionary step to avoid similar impacts to the Joshua Tree National Park visitor's center near the park's north entrance. Its City Council voted to amend the center's lease to transfer some of its obligations from the Park Service to the Joshua Tree National Park Assn. the park's main nonprofit partner. That will ensure the center stays open in the event that the Park Service is forced to suspend visitor's center operations more broadly, said city manager Stone James.
'The center's closure would harm our downtown,' James said. 'It would also prevent visitors from receiving important information on where to go within the national park and, most importantly, on how to stay safe.'
At the Joshua Tree rally, multiple community members noted the national park's importance as a tourism draw that helps sustain the local economy.
"Just look at the businesses, the farmer's market," said Jim Fitzsimmons, 71. "That thing's packed every Saturday."
Others pointed to the need for protected natural areas to provide clean water and fresh air.
"When we ruin the lands, then we suffer as a species," said Mary Mackley, 62, as she perched on a lawn chair beside her sister Michelle Mackley, 59.
"I never go out and protest anything — I sit at home in front of my TV, watch it all on the news," Michelle added. "Today, I could not sit inside. It's gone too far. I could not stay home and watch our nation go down the toilet."
Wigglesworth reported from Joshua Tree, Cosgrove from Calabasas. Times staff writer Jack Dolan contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.