PORT TOWNSEND — Six “iron rangers” will begin collecting parking fees from Fort Worden State Park visitors by mid-February if $25,000 isn’t raised soon.
Kate Burke, manager of Fort Worden State Park, told members of the Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce on Monday that they have until Jan. 31 to successfully wind up a fund-raising campaign to offset the parking fees.
If they don’t, she’ll have to implement the state’s parking-fee plan, which began elsewhere in the state on Jan. 1 but was delayed at Fort Worden through a chamber fund-raising campaign.
The $5 daily fees are designed to offset state budget cuts to parks, but the chamber and other business-interest groups think the Fort Worden fees will harm tourism and economic development at the state park and conference center.
“Iron rangers” are tall, locked metal containers into which patrons place envelopes containing their parking fees.
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