PORT TOWNSEND — Options such as splitting up Fort Worden State Park or taking it over entirely are among those to be discussed by the Port Townsend Public Development Authority in the wake of the news that park manager Kate Burke must leave her job.
Burke has served as manager of Fort Worden and Fort Townsend state parks and the Rothschild House park in uptown Port Townsend since 2002 and oversaw 33 full-time-equivalent positions.
She will be displaced Feb. 1 by a new director, Allison Alderman, the state Parks and Recreation Commission said Jan. 6.
In addition to her duties as park manager, Burke has been a board member of the PDA, which since the end of 2009 has sought to develop Fort Worden into a self-sustaining Lifelong Learning Center with diverse educational programs.
Plans to keep Burke on job
Strategies that would allow Burke to could continue to supervise the park’s evolution into an education center will be discussed at a special meeting of the PDA from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in the North Room downstairs in Building 204 at Fort Worden State Park.
Alderman, who has worked for State Parks for 21 years, displaced, or “bumped,” Burke, who has less seniority, after her job as region operations manager in the State Parks Northwest Region Office was eliminated as part of agency-wide budget cuts intended to shave expenditures by $11 million.
According to state personnel system rules, when a staff position is eliminated, the person in the position has tenure rights to certain other positions.
“There is a chance this can be reversed, and it is clearly in the community’s best interests that we try,” said Scott Wilson, PDA board member and Port Townsend-Jefferson County Leader newspaper publisher, in an email.
“State bureaucracies can, at times, be turned around,” he said. “But they need to hear from us loudly and clearly, and our legislators need also to be involved.”
Port Townsend Development Director Rick Sepler, a member of the PDA, encouraged a letter-writing campaign.
“At this point, a number of partners are sending letters to the parks department and our legislators,” Sepler said. “To lose someone with institutional knowledge and has worked on this process for a number of years is really a setback.”
On Jan. 18, the PDA discussed three alternatives and decided to research two of them.
Split park
The most favored option, according to Sepler, is splitting the park into two sections, one that contains all of the buildings and programs — which would be leased to the PDA — and another with the campgrounds and recreational areas, which would remain under the jurisdiction of State Parks.
This would bring Peninsula College, Goddard College, Centrum, the Wooden Boat School and the Madrona Institute under PDA control.
The advantage of this, according to a working document, is to allow the PDA and the parks to utilize their respective strengths,
Take over entire park
A second option is to turn the entire park over to the PDA, which would increase local control and accountability but is likely to draw opposition from State Parks, according to the PDA document.
The third option, which is not favored by the PDA, is for it to enter into a co-management agreement with the State Park system, something that Sepler doesn’t think will succeed.
“Our confidence has been shaken in their ability to work together,” he said. “They could have handled the situation a lot better, if they had just made an announcement about the action and shown a commitment to the transition between Kate and her successor.
“They should have known what Kate means to us.”
Burke “is the glue that has held this process together,” Wilson said in his email. “The chance that a traditional park manager will be able to recreate Kate’s unique skills is minimal.”
Wednesday’s discussion is continued from a Jan. 11 meeting, where Burke’s supervisor, State Parks Assistant Director Larry Fairleigh, said the decision to remove Burke was an administrative one in keeping with state law.
After that meeting, he said he understood loyalty for Burke but hoped her successor would get a fair shake.
“If the community and the stakeholders give Allison an opportunity to be successful, we will be successful,” he said.
“If the community and the stakeholders don’t give Kate’s replacement a chance to be successful then it will be much more difficult,” Fairleigh added.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.