ACADIA NATIONAL PARK ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETINGAcadia National Park Headquarters, Bar Harbor, ME ATTENDANCE:Ben ‘Lee’ Worcester, Chair ABSENT COMMISSION MEMBERS:Jeffrey Clapp PLATFORM:In-person & Virtual via Zoom OPENING REMARKSThe Commission Chair, Ben (Lee) Worcester, called the meeting of the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission on Monday, June 02, 2025, 1:00 p.m. to order. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDAA motion was made by Howie Motenko to accept the agenda with one change in the order of the agenda and have the election of officers after approval of the minutes. Seconded by Kendall Davis. All approved, no opposed. Motion carries. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTESA motion was made by Kendall Davis and seconded by Fred Ehrlenbach to accept the minutes of September 09, 2024. All approved, no opposed, no abstained. Motion carries. ELECTION OF 2025 OFFICERSAnnouncement of nomination for election of 2025 Officers – Howie Motenko G. Bruce Wiersma, Chair - nominated by Jackie Johnston Fred Ehrlenbach moves to accept the slate of officers. Callie Gothard seconded. All approved, no opposed, no abstained. Motion carries. ANNOUNCEMENTThis winter, we lost two of our past ANP Advisory Commission members. Alice Long lived in Bar Harbor and served on the commission for 20 years representing the Department of the Interior in the role of Public at Large. We also lost Paul Richardson who served 30 years on the ANP Advisory Commission and was one of the original commission members. Paul resided in Otter Creek and represented the Town of Mount Desert. I knew these two individuals well and their advice and counsel were most appreciated. I just wanted to bring this acknowledgement as many of you knew and served on this commission with Alice and Paul. SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT – Kevin Schneider, SuperintendentWELCOME – Kevin SchneiderThank you to Lee Worcester for his service as Chair for the last 3 years on the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission. We appreciate it. And thank you to Bruce Wiersma, Kirk Emerson, and Howie Motenko for serving in your new position and continued service. We appreciate your leadership. Park Updates - Kevin Schneider:Memorial Day was busy, it was the kickoff to the summer and from what we can tell, everyone looks to Memorial Day to see how summer is going to be. Visitation was comparable to the last few years despite a rainy weekend. Adam Gibson will give us more details on visitation in a moment on our last season's visitation. The park is up and running for the season and the majority of our assets opened up on time. We were fortunate this winter was gentle on the carriage roads and generally on the trails, so we did not have the cleanup we did in the spring of last year. In terms of personnel and assignments, Brandon Bies, our Deputy Superintendent, is on a temporary assignment serving as the Deputy Regional Director. He is able to work remotely from here in Maine but is working for the regional office for the next 120 days or so. Filling in behind Brandon is Rebecca Cole-Will, our Chief of Natural and Cultural Resources, serving as the Acting Deputy Superintendent. Abe Miller-Rushing is filling in behind Rebecca as the acting Chief of Natural and Cultural Resources. A big thank you to Abe and Becky for stepping up in this interim period. Keith Johnston was on a detail as Acting Superintendent for about six months at Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument and he came back to us in March of this year. We are glad to have Keith back but appreciate him stepping up to serve as Acting Superintendent at Katahdin Woods & Waters. At Schoodic Institute, we have had staffing challenges as far as staffing to operate the water system and meet state testing requirements. We have had to contract a water operator to keep the system running so we would not have to shut the water system down until we could hire the necessary staff. We are still trying to hire as many of our seasonal workforce as we can. It is a late-start to onboard staff, but we are doing our best and, in all likelihood, will be short-staffed this coming summer as with previous summers. We are still on a hiring freeze for permanent positions for year-round workforce aside for law enforcement, fire, and a handful of other categories. In addition, on the personnel front, a couple of our staff have been consolidated to the Department of the Interior (DOI). DOI is consolidating several functions across the Department of the Interior agencies that range from IT to Communications, Public Relations, Contracting, Financial Assistance, and Human Resources. Three employees have been transferred to Department of the Interior but are still based in the park – Jay Elhard (Visitor Information Spec), Amanda Pollock (PAO), and Dan Carber (IT). They are now reporting to the DOI, but their work has not changed. This meeting should be the last Advisory Commission meeting in the training trailer. The new maintenance building is taking shape and looks amazing. We hope to move into the building by late fall. And then demolish the old building before the end of the calendar year. We are looking forward to a ribbon cutting ceremony. The new maintenance building was sponsored by the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) co-sponsored by Senator King. This is the last fiscal year of GAOA. Thank you to Senator King for introducing that legislation. We are making great progress with employee housing. Our current housing is full even with limited staff and we increasingly see the need for employee housing for year-round staff. We have made great accomplishments this past year. Dane Farm near Jordan Pond is complete, and we have employees living in those eight bedrooms. A community open house was held in the spring and well attended. Friends of Acadia (FOA) is leasing them to the park until we can acquire them. Harden Farm on Kebo Street is under construction, and we will have 28-bedroom units that are being built. The foundation has been poured, walls are going up, and the roof trusts may be in this week. We expect to issue a solicitation to fund the next phase of construction, which will be another 28 bedrooms. We are issuing a solicitation to connect the wastewater system at Harden Farm to the Bar Harbor municipal wastewater system. We are working with the Town of Bar Harbor to help increase the water supply to Harden Farm and help provide funding to Bar Harbor so they can increase their water supply. I want to give a shout out to Jim Smith, Town Manager, for working with us on both of these critical infrastructure projects. I would like to recognize Friends of Acadia who helped make these dreams come to life. FOA has supported this effort through their “Raise the Roof” campaign. We have been able to fund this work through FOA’s philanthropic dollars and match it with federal dollars through the Centennial Challenge Program, along with another program called the Housing Improvement Program. We have been fortunate that FOA’s philanthropic efforts have led to this happening. We used to have a small campground used by volunteers and other staff with RVs which was lost when our new maintenance building was constructed in that location. Thanks to FOA, this past winter, our team constructed a new replacement 13-site campground located on Seal Cove Road in Southwest Harbor for our volunteers and employees. It has hookups - electric, water, and wastewater. We saved a lot by doing it in-house. Our team worked hard to make it happen. There was a lot of overtime because this was in addition to their normal day jobs. But we saved a lot of money by doing it in-house. We have volunteers moved in and have 11 of the 13 sites occupied. We are still making use of the Kingsleigh Inn in Southwest Harbor thanks to Friends of Acadia. It has been extraordinary to see how we have been able to expand our housing portfolio. It is so critical in order to have the staff we need. Another project is the Town Hill parcel in the town of Bar Harbor. This was the transfer station parcel that we have. Legislation passed a few years ago to use the site for housing. We have had a site survey done, identified vernal pools, and held a community meeting with adjacent landowners. Island Housing Trust acquired an abutting parcel of land which will provide actual legal access to the property. It had a legal right-of-way but did not have legal access. We are working on additional site planning with designers and engineers, understanding the type and density of development that can be supported on the site. FOA has supported the park’s cost through cost-sharing with the town of Bar Harbor to fund the site plan. And a big shout out to Island Housing trust who acquired the abutting parcel. A quick update on the Disaster Supplemental Appropriation from the back-to-back storms in January 2024 which destroyed millions of dollars of infrastructure statewide. I am pleased to say this past December, Congress appropriated funding to help make permanent repairs from that damage. We are now working with consultants to create scopes of work, to identify costs, and validation. We have prioritized improving access to Sand Beach as the stairs were completely compromised. We are looking to create an accessible connection to the beach to accommodate people with disabilities and mom or dad pushing a stroller. We will be renovating the Schoodic Shores campus structures and making repairs to the historic slate tile roof on the Rockefeller building which has leaked for years and the storm exacerbated that damage. There are locations on Ocean Drive which are close to having a serious loss of roadway and those resilient repairs will make that more sustainable into the future. Last year, Seawall Road in Southwest Harbor, was washed out. There were temporary repairs made. The next step, we will be working to allocate storm damage funding to Maine DOT so they can make the repairs. It was a huge impact on the community, and we are glad to use these Disaster Supplemental Funds to help fund the entirety of those repairs. So, our next step is to work with Maine DOT to work through an agreement to transfer the funds to them. 2024 Park Visitation - Adam Gibson, Social Scientist (PowerPoint Presentation)One of the things I do for the park is to analyze visitation and visitation trends. We have been relatively constant 2021 through 2024, always within 5% of the previous year but continuing an uphill trend. Adam shared a PowerPoint presentation showing the increase from 1990-2024. In 2024, there were 213,322 vehicle reservations during 159 days in operation. There was a 19% no show rate, 15% turnaround rate, and 20 sold out days. We are offering about 400 more reservations per day than we were when we started the reservation system in 2021. The turnaround rate would be the number of visitors that come to the entrance station without a reservation and are refused entry. We are at about 15%. That number is declining each year but there will always be a certain number of people who get turned away. The overall summary shows that visitation remains consistently higher post 2020. There were some minor shifts in the use of the vehicle reservation system in 2024. There was a higher percentage of reservations used in 2024. More visitors made same-day reservations, the turn-around rate was lower, and there were fewer sold-out days. We sell 90% capacity which leaves a 10% buffer for those who stay later on Cadillac. Healthy Forest/Emerald Ash Borer – Rebecca Cole-Will, Acting Deputy Superintendent (PowerPoint Presentation)For almost 20 years, there has been an extensive study on forest health at Acadia National Park. Our forests are generally healthy, but we had invasive pests affecting our trees such as Red Pine Scale in our Red Pines and Hemlock wooly adelgid affecting our hemlock trees. Another pest is the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). We have not had the Emerald Ash Border in our Ash trees in the park yet, but it has been found on Mount Desert Island. Jesse Wheeler and his vegetation crew are doing extensive monitoring. We are working with Maine Coast Heritage Trust and the Maine Forest Service across the area to locate, identify, and monitor and understand this pest. We are working on communication with the public on quarantine and not moving firewood around. Buy your firewood locally. We can monitor, watch for disturbance and use some bio controls. We need to know when to use it and manage applications. The best way to combat EAB is prevention and education. Once identified, a tree can be treated for 2-5 years. Education is key. Acadia Gateway Center – John Kelly, Management AssistantThe Acadia Gateway Center is on the mainland, approximately 3 miles north of the island. It is a welcome transit center. It has been 23 years in the making and construction is scheduled to be completed mid-July. We are excited to move in. It will include the Maine Tourism Association, Downeast Transportation (Island Explorer), Eastern National, and the National Park Service. We are hoping to move in soon after the construction is complete. We plan to be scheduling a ribbon cutting and the Advisory Commission and Congressional Delegation will be invited. Construction and Maintenance - Keith Johnston, Chief of facilities & MaintenanceWe are nearly wrapped up on the Great American Outdoor Act projects last year at Schoodic. We are down to some small items on Schoodic Institute’s improved water system and wastewater system. We are preparing for Phase II to be awarded, which is basically a wastewater discharge plan with a subsurface field. We are going down to a much smaller localized system which will be easier for us to manage. At Great Meadow, the replacement culvert design is done to improve the health of Great Meadow and will, hopefully, be awarded soon with the replacement of the culvert to a bridge type this fall. The Park Loop Road will be paved starting at the beginning of the one-way to the entrance station, 0-5, this fall. OLD BUSINESSNone NEW BUSINESSElection of 2025 Officers – Howie Motenko
Updated Charter, 2024 – Kevin SchneiderFor informational purposes, a current charter has been distributed to the Commission. There are minor changes. You are not required to vote on it. The expiration date for the Advisory Commission has been removed which was passed by Congress. So now the Acadia Advisory Commission is permanent. The objective of the Advisory Commission is to consult on matters related to Acadia National Park including, but not limited to, the acquisition of land and interests in land including conservation easements. The duties of the Commission are solely advisory. I am the Designated Federal Official (DFO), and, in that role, I am responsible for calling the meetings, creating the meeting and agenda, and cancel meetings. COMMITTEE REPORTSScience & Education Committee – Bruce Wiersma, Committee ChairWe had a good field trip today and would like to thank everyone who attended and prepared for it. Thank you to Kendall, Callie, Steve, and Lee from the Commission and thank you to Dr. Abe Miller-Rushing for organizing it. Compliments to the science staff, Jesse Wheeler, Vegetation Program Manager, Bik Wheeler, Wildlife Biologist, and Kate Miller, Quantitative Ecologist, who joined us. The purpose of the field trip was to observe animal herbivory damage at Acadia National Park. The park’s science staff did a great job. My summary, from what we heard and observed, was that the deer population in the park are well under control and there do not seem to be any major issues. You may want to look at the snowshoe hare. I wrote up a summary, which is attached, along with handouts we received for the field trip. There are no recommendations to the Commission at this time. Park Use Committee – Jackie Johnston, Committee ChairThe Park Use Committee did not meet. So, there's nothing to report today. Lands Committee – Darron Collins, Committee ChairWe have not met. History Committee – No ReportNo meeting was held. FRIENDS OF ACADIA – Eric Stiles, President & CEOI want to start out under the adage, may you live in interesting times, which we do indeed. We have spent three weeks in Washington, D.C. since February with the National Park Conservation Association, trying to educate decision makers about the needs and opportunities for the park. I want to thank their staff that are in the audience. I have never worked with a Delegation who is as passionate about the parks and outdoor recreation as our Delegation. I want to share that with the Commissioner’s, to know how hard they are working in D.C. on behalf of Acadia National Park and its communities. As part of that, you know, vision with no funding is a hallucination and as we look at the Great American Outdoor Act, we are about to see a hallmark, one of the poster children for its passage with the new maintenance building and looking at renewal. That is, the funds will be sunsetting in 2025. So, America the Beautiful Act was introduced by Senator Daines of Wyoming and Senator King this past April. A recent study from Pew Charitable Trust showed 76 percent of Americans support national parks and continued investment in those sites. I think it is essential to who we are as a nation and who we are as a people. It is those bipartisan efforts that pave for a bright future for national parks. But that will need a seismic investment in infrastructure throughout the United States as Kevin mentioned. Some opportunities for renewal through America the Beautiful Act, Senators are hoping to get that done in time for our 250th celebration. What a way to celebrate the anniversary of us as a nation, a massive continued investment in America’s best ideas. In addition to the housing sites, Friends of Acadia purchased the campus of Jordan River Road which is six townhomes being used primarily as housing for Island Explorer drivers. That was at the request of Kevin and the park to try to provide relief for Island Explorer drivers who are essential. Friends of Acadia is excited to make an investment, and for public record, Friends of Acadia does pay property taxes for property they own. We want to support the communities in which our facilities are located. We use the streets, police, firefighters, etc. I just want to say that it was a decision of our Board of Directors. We rent our commercial space in downtown Bar Harbor. We hire a bunch of seasonals for the summer months to work at the request of the park. Embedded in the park are our Summit Stewards. We have the Volunteer Drop-in Program which is a great opportunity. Folks can show up on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings at Hulls Cove Visitor Center for now, but they will be moved to the new maintenance building. There are a lot of families who volunteer while on vacation to give back to the park. We oversee that the volunteer crew leaders are trained up. We have recreation technicians to help monitor and assess recreational usage and patterns in the park for park management to make its decisions. We have the Wild Gardens of Acadia, led by volunteers and seasonals where people can learn in a low-pressure environment. They will have their Annual Plant Sale on June 14th at Saint Xavier's church. 100% of the sales are invested in Wild Gardens. So, it's an important revenue source that allows us to offer this at no charge. In communications, we are increasingly doing digital media. Jay brought his lovely pups, and last summer we did a video about the Bark Ranger program about responsible dog owner behavior, not the dog’s. It's really the owners and fun things like riding the Island Explorer, some folks that come here for the first time might be a little intimidated. They're not used to mass transit. We are just making fun videos again, at the request of the park. SCHOODIC INSTITUTE UPDATE – Nick Fisichelli, President & CEO, Schoodic InstituteJust some quick updates for you all. Next month is the 25th anniversary of the inception of Acadia's Research and Learning Center. In July of 2000 the National Park Service submitted a proposal to host a research learning center on the previous Navy site. Mike Succup was the Associate Director for the National Park Service. At that point, the associate director for Natural Resource, stewardship, and science really oversaw the creation of the research & learning center. Thank you, Mike, for all your effort and you know a lot has happened in 25 years on campus and that was because of the investment of the Congressional Delegation and Acadia National Park on that campus. So, as Eric mentioned today, members of Congress in Maine are really focused on Acadia and there’s a legacy of that going back decades. The Research & Learning Center campus has really benefited from restoring classrooms and meeting space with the auditorium where we all get to meet in September for the Commission meeting. Of course, the local community came together to form Schoodic Institute as the nonprofit partner. We have certainly grown over time. And Adam spoke about visitation here in Acadia, and the Schoodic district and campus are also places for visitors coming to Acadia to learn about the history of the Navy base and science education happening there. We've been seeing, just like the graphs Adam has shown, increases in visitation to the campus. Last year was the busiest year for our center with over 30,000 visitors. That’s about a 25% increase from the previous year. We had about 37,000 overnight guests on campus, and about 2300 participants to some of our programs. In addition, we had over 700 kids for the Schoodic Education Adventure (SEA) Program plus the staff we bring on for supporting these programs, as well as guest groups on campus. Last year we had almost 100 people on the payroll over the course of a year. It's about 30-year-round staff. And then we have about 40 early career science and education science communication staff. So, interns, technicians and environmental educators. And then another 30-hospitality staff, housekeeping, and kitchen staff. About 80 percent of our staff are Hancock and Washington County residents. We are still a major employer on the Schoodic peninsular and in town, really trying to create those opportunities for longtime local residents. But, also, these early career jobs attract young people to our area. I will just end by saying for this year, projects we’re working on continue to be the big restoration projects in the park on the summit of Cadillac, whether its February or September. We’re having to find time to go up there. The Great Meadow restoration work continues and that’s related to invasive species, and Jesse and his crew are figuring out ways to restore vegetation. Once non-native invasive shrubs are removed, Jesse and his crew won’t have to visit these sites so frequently in the future. I will stop with that and happy to answer any questions.
Kirk Emerson: I went to Schoodic Institute to see the Interpretive Room and it was very informative. It was great for visitors. PUBLIC COMMENTMike Fedosh, Selectman from the Town of Isle au Haut:Good afternoon. I'm selectman from the town of Isle au Haut, and you know this is the 1st time I'm coming to the Commission, and I'm well familiar with the background of the Commission, and whoever formed it did not have a map or recognize that Isle au Haut was missing and didn’t have seat on the table here. I recognize the staff will come out and appreciate talking with them, and they've heard about our situation on the island, and just we're going to make ourselves present. We have a turnover where the selectboard is young with me as the exception, and we just want to be heard, or want to know what's going on these commissions, and just let you know that Isle au Haut does exist. We don't have a population or visitors like the other areas as you know, I've heard that's where your money is going, and that's what the demand is. But even without people we do have degradation of parklands, and I know the staff is aware of it. So that's it. I'm here, and I'm going to hopefully be here in. Todd Martin, National Park Conservation Association:I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Todd Martin. I work at the National Parks Conservation Association for a nationwide nonprofit, and we advocate for the National Park Service. We've been around for more than 100 years, and I live in Winslow, Maine, and I advocate for the National Park sites in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and other parts of New England, but not for New York or New Jersey. You have colleagues in those states as well as around the country. We have a staff of about 200, across the country, advocating for all 433 units of the National Park Service. I work very closely with Superintendent Schneider, with John Kelly and many others here at the Park. We are also very close with Eric Stiles and with the great team at Friends. So, I've been on staff. For a couple of years, I've been to one of these meetings. I just want to introduce myself, say hello, and want to extend my thanks to the Congressional delegation. I know that we have Carol here from Senator Collins office, and Christina is here from Senator King's office, and Zach here from Congressman Golden's office and you know, as Kevin said, we're so lucky to have such a dedicated delegation who cares about our national parks, and we're going to need that in the next several months. So, a really huge, thanks to our delegation for sticking up for you. CLOSING COMMENTSThe Commission Chair made closing comments. ADJOURNMENTThe next meeting is scheduled September 08, 2025, 1:00 pm, Moore Auditorium at Schoodic Institute, and it will continue to be an in-person and virtual meeting as published in the FEDERAL REGISTER. |
Last updated: September 11, 2025