NORDLAND — Fort Flagler State Park volunteers were honored and appalled all in one day when they received the state’s Outstanding Volunteer Group of the Year award only to find out that the park they love and care for was on Washington State Parks’ latest list for possible closure.
“It doesn’t make sense. It’s really amazing, surprising. It’s shocking,” said Bob Sully, Friends of Fort Flagler president, who went before the state parks commissioner last Thursday in Olympia to receive the volunteer group honor.
Sully and other Friends of Fort Flagler then learned that the 784-acre park on the north end of Marrowstone Island is on a newly proposed “mothball” list with 36 other state parks.
The park closures are part of a second wave of cuts the state parks commission is considering to save $23 million of state parks’ $100 million biennium budget.
Old Fort Townsend State Park south of Port Townsend and Bogachiel State Park south of Forks are on the first list of 13 state parks proposed for transfer to other ownerships or closure.
Gov. Chris Gregoire on Feb. 19 announced an estimated $8.5 billion budget deficit for the 2009-2011 biennium, up from the governor’s original estimate of $5.7 billion and requiring additional cuts.
The latest list also includes Camp Casey State Park at Keystone on Whidbey Island, part of the historic military “triangulation of fire” at Admiralty Inlet during World War II.
Fort Ebey near Coupeville is also on the list.
Sully said he believes Flagler’s little sister down Flagler Road, Mystery Bay State Park in the heart of the Nordland community, is also on the closure list as a satellite boat access area.
But Linda Burnett, State Parks public affairs officer, said Tuesday that Mystery Bay was not a part of Fort Flagler State Park and would not be on the list.
Burnett said the new list is preliminary.
“This is just a list that they had to be put together real fast,” Burnett said, to show savings options.
The latest list targets parks that cost the state $300,000 or more per biennium, she said.
Next, Burnett said, the state will examine different criteria for selecting parks for a final cut.
“This is the very first draft list,” she said. “Ultimately, we have to wait until we are given the final state budget.”
Burnett said all public comments and suggestions can be sent to her at pao@parks.wa.gov.
Larry Crockett, Port of Port Townsend executive director, said he had not heard that Fort Flagler was on the list, but recently talked to State Parks Superintendent Rex Derr about the port considering taking over the maintenance of Old Fort Townsend State Park.
Crockett said he joked with Derr about the port taking over Fort Flagler, too, if the state offered it.
Derr did not indicate that Fort Flagler was on the mothball list, however, Crockett said.
Old Fort Townsend, Bogachiel
The port commissioners at 1 p.m. today will convene in their administrative office chambers at 375 Hudson St. to discuss the port’s Old Fort Townsend State Park proposal.
The port commissioners last week sent a letter to Derr, expressing their interest and consideration in assuming the 367-acre park off state Highway 20.
The future of Bogachiel State Park is on Clallam County Commissioner Mike Doherty’s list of topics for discussion with state legislators today in Olympia, Forks Mayor Nedra Reed said.
Otherwise, there is no news about efforts to save the park south of Forks, Reed said Tuesday.
“We’re sort of in a holding pattern until we find out what’s happening with the Legislature,” Reed said.
“There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes with those of us who want to save the park,” she added.
Commissioners in both Clallam and Jefferson counties have signed a letter to state Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, asking the 24th District representative and House Majority Leader to consider a Montana-based system of non-taxed volunteer funding of parks.
The system gives motorists the ability to opt into or opt out of a $5 annual donation to state parks when they renew their vehicle registration fee each year.
“This is just one more reason to consider the opt-in plan,” said Jefferson County Commissioner John Austin.
Flagler revenue
Sully said that Flagler, a marine camping park surrounded on three sides by 19,100 feet of saltwater shoreline, returns 67 percent of its annual investment, with an annual expense of $674,000 and $458,000 in revenues generated through fees, rentals and conferences.
“The retreat center here is filled up just about all year,” he said.
It is not uncommon to see up to six school buses at a time drop off middle-school students from the North Olympic Peninsula’s school for a week of camp at Flagler, where they are housed in old Army barracks.
Sully said the park system estimates it would save about $216,000 a year if it closed Flagler, compared with $74,000 for Old Fort Townsend.
Fort Flagler drew about 447,000 visitors in 2008, he said, which is a little down from the previous year because gas prices soared.
But it is the local economy he fears will be hurt as much or more than the state.
“There’s a big financial impact on the county,” he said.
Tom Rose, co-owner of Nordland General Store on the way up Flagler Road toward the state park, agrees.
“Of course it affects me,” Rose said. “When it’s open, that’s most of our business.”
Rose had trouble believing the park was up for possible closure until Sully dropped into the store Tuesday to confirm it.
Austin said he already had four e-mails from residents asking the county to help with Flagler.
County Commissioner David Sullivan, D-Cape George, whose district includes Marrowstone Island, was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
Flagler volunteers
Sully and more than 70 other volunteers put in hundreds of hours of free labor each year at Fort Flagler. They have maintained the park over the past 10 years, from trail maintenance and painting to lawn mowing.
The volunteers are now reroofing the park’s hospital building at Fort Flagler, part of a $1.2 million renovation of the historic building.
Fort Flagler rests on a high bluff overlooking Puget Sound, with views of the Olympic and Cascade Mountains. Many historic buildings remain at this 19th-century military fort.
Fort Flagler, along with the heavy batteries of Fort Worden and Fort Casey, once guarded nautical entrance to Puget Sound.
These posts, established in the late 1890’s, became the first line of a fortification system designed to prevent a hostile fleet from reaching such targets as the Bremerton Naval Yard and the cities of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett. Construction began in 1897 and continued in one form or another until the fort was closed in 1953.
The property was purchased as a state park in 1955. Fort Flagler is named after Brig. Gen. Daniel Webster Flagler.
The park has 5 miles of trails, 5 miles of biking trails, two boat ramps and 256 of boat moorage dock.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
Reporter Rob Ollikainen contributed to this report.
