The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is updating its rules around how and when visitors may be excluded from state parks. A committee of lawyers, mental health professionals and park staff has been developing the update over the last few months. The updated rules specify that any behavior that endangers the safety of visitors, staff or park resources qualifies for an exclusion. They also lay out how long a visitor may be excluded based on those behaviors and the appeals process for visitors who feel they’ve been unfairly excluded. Public comment on the update is now open and will close Nov. 3.
Chris Havel is the deputy director and spokesperson for OPRD. He joins us with more details on the proposed update.
Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is updating its rules governing how and when visitors can be excluded from state parks. A committee of lawyers, mental health professionals and park staff has been developing the update over the last few months. The proposed rules specify that visitors can face exclusions for breaking any state park rule, but that the length of the exclusion has to be based on the severity of the violation. There would also be a new system for appealing these bans. The public can weigh in on the proposed changes through November 3rd. Chris Havel is a spokesperson for the Parks and Recreation Department. He joins us now with more details. Welcome back to the show.
Chris Havel: Thank you. Good day.
Miller: Good day to you. What exactly is an exclusion from a state park?
Havel: So an exclusion is at the very top of our enforcement authority in the state park system. We’re not law enforcement, we don’t have those kinds of powers, but we are charged with making sure that everybody has a pleasant stay when they’re in a state park and that the park itself is protected. So an exclusion comes usually after everything else has failed, in order to get compliance with a particular rule. And if it’s important enough, if there’s enough threat there to either people or property or the park resource, then we can direct a person to not just leave the park, but stay out of the park for a specified temporary period of time.
Miller: What prompted the update to these rules?
Havel: So it’s probably been decades since we looked at this particular rule. And the rule that’s currently on the books is very simple. It simply says just as you said, that violation of any rule can lead to an exclusion. And that was written at a time when we were far less busy than we are now, doing fewer exclusions as a result. And I think in simpler times, a simple rule sufficed. But now that we’re much, much busier and we’re seeing different kinds of behavior out in the park system, we really needed to get in and update it. And we were actually involved with some lawyers related to a case where somebody challenged an exclusion and they pointed out that we were inconsistent in the way that we applied that authority and that it was time for an update and we agreed to do that. And just looking at the rule, it’s pretty clear it needs to be updated.
Miller: Have you seen an increase in the kinds of behavior that’s serious enough to lead to exclusions?
Havel: Yeah, we’re seeing, not just as a result of the increase in visitation that we have in the state park system, and we regularly have been breaking records for the last 10 years, as the outdoors become more and more popular. But we’re also seeing a lot of new people out in parks and that I think that can lead to, for some people who are new to the experience, a little bit of wonder and sometimes culture shock about what good, safe behaviors are out in the park system. So we’re seeing a lot of that, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re automatically going to be doing more exclusions, but that can be the result. We try to get compliance with rules at the lowest possible level and that’s almost always just a simple conversation with somebody when they’re violating a rule. That almost always works.
Miller: The new rules state that, quote, “A park manager or department enforcement officer may exclude a person that violates any state park rule from the park property or multiple park properties for a specified period of time. The duration of an exclusion is based on severity of the state park rule violation.” And then the rule goes on to explain different things that can be taken into account, in terms of threats to people or property or park resources.
But it really does seem like these new rules would provide a lot of discretion to rangers because they don’t say, for example, somebody would get a two week exclusion for X, or a two month exclusion for Y, or you’re banned forever if you do Z. Why not be more specific, if part of the intent was to get rid of some of the problematic wiggle room? It seems like there is still a lot of discretion built in.
Havel: Yeah, that’s a good point and we may hear that here during the public comment period, which is what it’s for. It’s to show us where maybe we need to be more specific or whether maybe we’re being too specific in some cases. We wait to see what kind of guidance we get back when we do these public comment periods.
But you’re absolutely right. And that’s part of the art of running a park. It’s not just a matter, for instance, of opening up the doors and letting everybody do whatever they want. That clearly doesn’t work, but you also don’t want to get so prescriptive that our rangers would have like no choice but to exclude somebody when there are other remedies available. Like I say, we start with a verbal warning, we can go to a written warning, we can just ask somebody to leave temporarily, that’s for up to 72 hours, just to cool off and come back when you’re more chill and enjoy the park, and save exclusions for those cases where it’s really necessary.
And maybe we do need to be more prescriptive in the rules, be interested in what people think about that based on their own experience in the park. We’re taking comments through November 3rd up to 5pm. And let us know what you think and there’s a hearing where you can sound off on this as well.
Miller: I do want to run a few comments that have already come in by you. Daniel Felt wrote this: “I would like to see something added to ban people for public drug use and for camping on state park land outside of designated camping locations. I’d appreciate it if it was worded so that homeless people can be immediately removed when found and not left for 72 hours, perhaps making camping trespassing, so that they can be removed would be good. I am homeless and see too many people damage local public lands and facilities and do not want that for state properties.”
Do you have a sense for how the new rules specifically will affect people who are experiencing homelessness?
Havel: Yeah, excellent question. And here you get into the realm of our authority on state park lands, it’s not an island. We’re affected by state laws and in some cases, other limits that are on us, maybe through the legislative process. So we don’t just get to say, we’re not just absolute authority on state park land, but we want to make sure that properties are protected. That 72 hour notice thing, for instance, we don’t have the option to say, oh, we’re just going to not pay any attention to that state law, we’re going to do whatever we want. We apply the state laws and then apply rules within that.
So we do know that there are people who are concerned when they see people who are camping because they have no other place to go, in some cases, and that concerns them that they’re not there for recreation like everybody else is in a park and we work with local law enforcement, sheriffs and the state police, where those things pose a problem with park resources or a danger to people. And those are sort of the bounds that we play inside. But we agree that the big problems that affect society also flow right into a park. There’s no barrier there that keeps those problems from coming in, and we want to make sure that we deal with those in a humane way and just saying, nope, you’re camped in the wrong spot, you, I’m looking at you right now and you’ve got to leave, that’s not the way state law works. And so that’s not the way state park rules work.
Miller: A few people who left public comments asked if these new rules could lead to abuse, to unfair exclusions for any number of reasons. How will the appeals process work if these rules are finalized?
Havel: Yeah, and this is an area that’s entirely new in the rules, and the old rule didn’t have any description of what to do if an appeal really needs to be more seriously considered. The old appeal was you go one step up the chain of command, from where the exclusion was written. So our park managers often write those exclusions. It would go up one step to what we call our district managers and that’s where it would end. This new system that we’re proposing, and the rule that we’d like comment on, especially the long exclusions, takes the ones greater than 180 days, and gets them out of the chain of command and out to a panel that would be appointed by our director. Just to make sure it’s objective and fact-based and gives the person who’s been excluded access to all of the facts that were used to justify the exclusion. And then that panel will go through and make a determination, is this justified or isn’t it?
We’ll also be informing people of their full rights, not just the ones in the State Park system rule set, but also outside of the agency. What do you do if you disagree with something an agency has done, you’ve got options in the administrative courts, for instance, in order to press your case that way. So we’ll be much clearer with everybody about what their rights are from the moment you get issued an exclusion.
Miller: Chris, thanks very much.
Havel: My pleasure. Thank you.
Miller: Chris Havel is a spokesperson for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. He joined us to talk about the newly proposed rules for when visitors can be excluded from Oregon State Parks. If you go to their website, you can comment, you can look at the rules and also comment on them. The commenting period goes through November 3rd.
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