The article above says Ms Muldoon spent ten years as superintendent at Point Reyes and that she "built and strengthened relationships with local communities and elected officials to find commonsense solutions."  Well, of course, we all want "relationships with local communities and elected officials" and they sure want the opportunity to have "relations" with us.  And, "commonsense" is a perennial favorite magic "buzzword" for us all.  However, those who follow NPT and other news sources also know that the tragic plight of remnant Tule elk at Point Reyes, not to mention their damaged and dwindling gene pool, and the impact of the ranching and dairy operations on those rare elk were hot topics during those years.  Many of us believe that the NPS at Point Reyes was and continues to be remiss in their servile acquiescence to those ranching and dairy interests.  Was that acquiescence part of strengthening "relationships with local communities and elected officials" and are we simply missing the "commonsense" nature of their vision?

Well, maybe, but what do magic "buzzwords" really mean, especially now that even more magic "buzzwords" are working their way into the conservation biology and national parks support arenas?  For example, when a species is extirpated from an ecosystem and there's another species there to take its place and assume its ecological niche, the biologists at Rice University in Texas are calling that "functional redundancy" within the ecosystem and telling us it's okay and we shouldn't be bothered by it.  So, I guess in the case of Point Reyes, if and when the focus on "relationships with local communities and elected officials" results in the extirpation of the remnant Tule elk, it's okay and we should be fine with it as long as dairy cows are there to take their place, eating the grass, churning the soil, and redepositing nitrogen.  I guess biologists at Rice University in Texas might see Tule elk as just "functionally redundant" if there's livestock to take their place.

As another example, we now have organizations, agencies, and institutions, including the NPS and even park support nonprofits, talking about "resiliency funding" and that sure sounds good.  I want to be resilient; don't you?  But, what do those magic "buzzwords" really end up meaning?  Well, let's look at the right way "resiliency funding" is supposed to work.  Suppose you're an agency and, when you make your annual budget submission to Congress, you list all the things that you're legislatively empowered or obligated to do and how much money you'll need to do them.  However, some agencies have to deal with widely variable circumstances.  What you'll need to deal with fires, storms, or other disasters can be hard to predict for any particular year.  So, with the agreement of Congress, bureaucrats in such agencies routinely ask for more than they'll need if the year turns out to be low on the catastrophe scale.  Again with agreement of Congress, if the agency doesn't need all of the money in that account in that year, they can be allowed to carry some over to the next year and what some bureaucrats think of as "resiliency funding" builds up so that it's there for emergency access the next time there's a bad year in their business.  The spending is transparent; so are the budget requests; and everything is openly audited.

Now let's look at how the "resiliency funding" concept can be misused.  Suppose you're a private entity, a park support nonprofit for example.  Suppose you have been soliciting public donations, for years, on the premise that those funds would be reserved for a specific project or activity that your supporters know about, understand, and endorse.  Your supporters have come to trust your organization; you've successfully run an honest and trustworthy operation for decades; and, based on the accumulated public donations you've received for this purpose, you've accumulated net assets that help ensure stable, reliable, support for this project or activity year-in-and-year-out.  You've been so trusted and so reliable that the park has come to depend on your support.  But, now suppose you've allowed some bad influences into your management and onto your board and these lowlifes have squandered those public donations, eaten into your net assets, and put you into debt in order to give exorbitant sweetheart compensation packages to their politically connected friends and sweetheart purchases to companies aligned with local politicians.  You're on the brink of bankruptcy and can't meet your commitments.  What should you do?  Well, you should immediately and publicly show the bad influences and lowlifes to the door, absolutely all of them, including that slimy retail director.  You should bring in law enforcement and cooperate with their investigations, even if it leads in the direction of prominent politicians.  You should release accurate up-to-date financial data as soon as possible.  And, you should come clean about the situation, how it happened, who did it, how you'll hold the miscreants accountable through public prosecution if possible, and how you're going to right the ship.  What should you not do?  You should not try to hide the truth and pretend nothing is wrong while you continue to solicit public donations as if the public has some valid, transparent, and fully informed reason to trust you.  You should not maintain a web page soliciting emergency "resiliency funding" that leaves a dishonest impression of why the "resiliency funding" came to be needed in the first place.  That would be a corrupt and self-serving misuse of the "resiliency funding" concept.

So, given the situation at Point Reyes, I'm having trouble celebrating Ms Muldoon's career success.  I do not, despite his party affiliation, believe Representative Huffman has properly fulfilled his responsibilities with regard to Point Reyes.  And, I think we need to be careful about magic "buzzwords" being used to cloud issues more than illuminate them.

Congratulations to Ms. Muldoon. Now, let's get down to what We The People care about: access.

Access to the meager campground sites has been horrible since the computer boys and girls figured out how to steal access to the reservations systems. I'm sure it's cool to know you can butt in front of everyone because you're smarter than anyone else, but it's not equal.

The new reservations vendor keeps changing the website functionality thinking that will make access easier. It doesn't.

Please do not put up fences to keep people out of the Merced River above the falls. The signs say all that's important.

Please kill a bunch of the oak and pine saplings in the valley to protect the views We The People enjoy. We can see plenty of oaks and pines without going to a National Park.

Please add more - a lot more - campsites.

Please allow people who haven't been able to camp at the park for, say, 4 years have a higher priority to get a reservation than those who camp every year.

And now that the camping reservations are computerized, ditch the 6-month / 15th of the month swamp time. Just let We The People make reservations online based on OUR schedule, not yours.

Thanks and you now have the best job at the best place in the world!

Maybe it's just me, but anyone people pepper their comments with "we the people" I always get an uneasy vibe. 

Gosh, George H, I guess I know how you feel.  Too many marginally educated folks are talking a lot about things in which they apparently don't even believe.  One minute they talk about "We The People" and the Constitution, then seem to outright brag about not even believing in American democracy.  And, what really makes me uneasy is when they start saying thing like "Nothing worse than mob rule."  Well, yes, there is!  And, I wonder exactly who they're calling a 'mob' when they're the ones with the marginal educations; they're the ones with the established record of operating like a racketeer influenced corrupt organization; they're the ones spreading patently false conspiracy theories; they're the ones siding with the guys who carried the pitchforks, clubs, and torches at the riots in Charlottesville; they're siding with the militia that tried to kidnap a governor; and they're the ones trying to overthrow the government by using authoritarian gimmicks to try to reverse legitimate election results.  And, then they talk about "We The People" and the Constitution.  

Yeah, George H, according to these guys, "America is not a democracy" and, according to them, "It isn't governed by majority (mob) rule."  They talk about "We The People" as if the concept means something to them; but, it truly doesn't because, in their sick and deceitful minds, a majority of "We The People" is just a majority of the mob.  They've already publicly stated as much.  According to their twisted philosophy, there's "Nothing worse than mob rule" and don't kid yourself; they're talking about us.

No, they don't believe in nor do they really want democracy, which is why they're so desperately trying to normalize, trying to get us accustomed to hearing, trying to get us to believe, and trying to get us to accept that America is not and never was a democracy.  To get "We The People" to accept that America is not and never was a democracy would make their version of authoritarianism a fait accompli, accomplishing a key milestone in the implementation of their version of a final solution.  This recent election may have given them pause, but only pause, because their dream is oligarchy and they remain committed to finding a way to undermine and overthrow our form of government because it's not, at least not yet formally, based on oligarchy.

They remain committed to finding a way to overthrow our government because it's based on democracy, on majority rule, and, again, as they've already publicly stated, in their twisted philosophy, there's nothing worse than mob rule and, by mob, they mean us.  Their statements and efforts clearly threaten, well, our democracy; they tread close to the boundaries of moral, ethical, if not loyal, activities; and, as they themselves would say, my own reply would be "don't tread on me."  As I have said before, at this point, America has to respond with a more serious defense of our democracy and the first step in doing that would be to prosecute the Trump family and, wherever possible, their partisan republican enablers this coming spring and jail them as they deserve.  After all, aren't they the ones who originally wanted somebody locked up?  The least we can do is give them what they wanted.