Ebey's Landing Administrative History

Chapter Seven:
ADMINISTRATIVE OVERVIEW

In the 1980s, the Ebey's Landing trust board gradually developed an independent identity while learning to adapt to National Park Service regulations and ways of doing business. The source of the trust board's authority and the limits of its responsibilities were initially elusive concepts. The reserve ideal challenged the National Park Service to yield some of the control it traditionally wielded over its units, while remaining committed to the reserve's success. Inspired by the possibilities of Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve and the enthusiasm of the EBLA trust board, many National Park Service managers became converts to the concept of national reserves. This chapter describes the development of the administrative framework and professional management of the reserve, as well as the tenure of succeeding trust board chairpersons and NPS managers. More detailed discussions of specific programs are in subsequent chapters.

After the EBLA comprehensive plan was finished, Reed Jarvis remained in his position as project manager. The enabling legislation for EBLA required a number of interpretive programs and operational plans to be in place before responsibility could be handed to local control. Jarvis' task now was to implement and complete the development schedule outlined in the comprehensive plan. Because the National Park Service could not install waysides on lands that it did not own, cooperative agreements had to be reached with local governments and small amounts of land needed to be purchased for the installation of waysides. One component of the overall plan was for the National Park Service to acquire scenic easements on critical parcels within the reserve. Island County, for its share, would need to enact zoning ordinances in support of EBLA. Moreover, the governmental partners had to agree on their individual responsibilities and commitments. The comprehensive plan stated that these steps would take roughly three years to complete under full funding. However, since the timetable for such things as scenic easement acquisitions was not predictable--it was dependent upon willing sellers, among other things--the Service established no target date for transfer of authority to the trust board. Transfer would occur when appropriate. [1]

Absorbed in such preparations, and working half-time in Seattle, Reed Jarvis had little time for day-to-day operations within the reserve. [2] In 1982, he hired Kristin Ravetz to be the reserve's on-site representative. Ravetz was a trained historian and had prepared the draft environmental impact statement for the EBLA comprehensive plan. Under NPS personnel policies, Jarvis hired Ravetz as a temporary National Park Service ranger. However, her position was complex. She assisted in creating an interpretive brochure, acquired YCC crews for construction projects, supervised trail and wayside installations, monitored leases and scenic easements, provided interpretive programs and materials, and performed a variety of other duties. In fact, Jarvis intended to groom Ravetz to be executive director of the trust board, and referred to her by that title. [3]

During the first five years of reserve operations, Reed Jarvis worked without a trust board, concentrating on meeting the development schedule outlined in the comprehensive plan. He assisted a team from the NPS Harpers Ferry Center in preparing an interpretive program, negotiated along with Harlan Hobbs for scenic easements and locations for waysides, and orchestrated the effort to establish a trust board as a legal entity. In 1982, he negotiated a three-year cooperative agreement with the State of Washington to provide funding for a YCC crew and an interpreter at the lighthouse at Fort Casey State Park. This enabled the state park to complete maintenance and trail work at the park, which, in turn, provided interpretation of the reserve. [4] Once a statement for management (1983) and the land protection plan (1984) were prepared, Jarvis invited the other governmental partners to select representatives to form a trust board. Although this did not signal a transition to local control of the reserve, it did allay a growing uneasiness among some residents of central Whidbey Island that the NPS had simply assumed control of the reserve. Despite Ravetz's and Jarvis' outwardly open work in the community, the NPS was keeping a low profile. This seemed appropriate to Jarvis while he and Hobbs conducted negotiations for scenic easements, but some citizens were concerned about the lack of local input in reserve affairs. By the spring of 1985, however, the first trust board was in place, with planning professionals assigned from Coupeville and Island County to assist it. [5]