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Testimony/CommentsApril 2009 Park Service finally responds to and dismisses nonprofits' May and Dec 2008 joint lettersPublic frustration over the National Park Service's "National Mall Plan" has been growing since planning began in fall 2006. In 2008, several local and national nonprofits submitted two joint letters to the Park Service. However, neither Congress nor the Park Service has taken these concerns seriously. The latest Park Service response, from April 2009, shows no change in attitude, and certainly no shift toward the fundamental principles of transparency and accountability that are the hallmarks of the current administration. The correspondence between the nonprofits and the National Park Service regarding the National Mall Plan is as follows: 1. On May 20, 2008 the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on National Parks, held an oversight hearing on the National Park Service's (NPS) National Mall Plan. In response to Park Service testimony at that hearing, several nonprofits (including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Association for Olmsted Parks, National Parks Conservation Association, National Coalition to Save Our Mall, and others) frustrated with the lack of meaningful progress in NPS's Mall planning process wrote a joint letter to the Park Service. Five months later, the Park Service reply ignored or dismissed those concerns without serious consideration. It may surprise many people to see on p. 6 of the Park Service reply -- in response to a comment calling for a multi-jurisdictional, comprehensive vision for the entire National Mall, not just Park Service areas -- that the Park Service "believes that a comprehensive vision for the National Mall has already been developed, based on the Legacy Plan and the Commemorative Works Act 'Reserve' Amendment." What do Legacy and the "Reserve" Amendment propose as a comprehensive Mall plan? The Legacy Plan by the National Capital Planning Commission states that the Mall is a "completed work of civic art." The "Reserve" Amendment of the Commemorative Works Act asserts that the Mall is "a substantially completed work of civic art." Neither statement can be considered a vision.
2. The second joint nonprofit letter, dated December 19, 2008, begins "We are increasingly concerned that the National Park Service is failing to take seriously the need to establish a means to create a multidisciplinary, visionary plan for the National Mall's future." This letter was also copied with a cover letter to Chairman Grijalva of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on National Parks, who chaired the May 2008 oversight hearing for the National Mall Plan. In her April 2009 reply, National Capital Regional Director Margaret O’Dell once again rejects public concerns and instead states that the Park Service plan “being prepared by a multi-disciplinary planning team that involves numerous cooperating agency representatives”…“will set a broad, long-term conceptual vision for the National Mall.”However, in the more than two years of Park Service planning, there is no evidence that the Park Service is attempting to plan for the entire Mall or for the interests of other Mall constituencies besides the National Park Service.
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