Audio
Craig Middleton
Transcript
[Tape 1, Side 1]
Haller: Are we...? Oh, good. My name is Steve Haller and I’m here at Presidio Trust headquarters, on June 14, 2002, with Craig Middleton, the acting executive director of the Trust And Craig, I’m really thankful that you took some time from your busy schedule to be interviewed today. So, thanks a lot for that.
Middleton: No problem at all.
Haller: Now, I understand that you give and grant to the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, all the literary and property rights, title and interest, which you may possess, and I do the same for those rights that I may possess, to this tape recording done on June 14th. And it’s for the history archives at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which gift we both will never revoke or recall. And I agree to those terms, and do you?
Middleton: Yes, I agree to that.
Haller: Great! Well, let’s get going. Would you care to share a little, some biography of your pre-Presidio years, just so we can understand you and who you are a little bit better?
Middleton: Sure. I had somewhat of a non-conventional background in the sense that I didn’t have a direct career path that led me here. Although I started out…I got a Masters in public administration in, I guess, it was 1986. And prior to that did a lot of carpentry work and that kind of thing. Worked in a variety of places but really started to work in the political environment after that. Went to Washington and worked for Congresswoman Pelosi, who was at that point a new Congresswoman, had been elected in 1987.
Haller: Before Washington, let me ask you, where’d you grow up?
Middleton: I grew up all over the place, mostly in California. Was born in Atascadero, California, down near San Luis Obispo. And my father was in sales and so we moved a lot, you know, in those days. He worked for General Motors and they kinda felt a little bit like the Army did. You move every two or three years So, we lived in Ohio, and we lived in Davis, and we lived in the peninsula. I went high school at Woodside High School down on the peninsula. And then I went to UC Santa Barbara and then later the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Haller: Thanks. Back to you started work then, you were saying, with Congresswoman Pelosi. When was that?
Middleton: That was in 198-…right in the beginning of ’88. She had been elected in ’87, in a special election of June of ’87. And I was knocking on doors in Washington, really wanted to work for Nancy, although I didn’t know her. But ended up being a wonderful position. I ended up moving in as a press secretary, and then doing all kinds of work there as most people do when they go to Washington. I worked on environmental issues for her in the international banking subcommittee of the banking committee, which she was on at the time. And then as she moved into different committees, particularly onto appropriations, I started to work on her appropriations stuff. Doing funding for—primarily for projects in San Francisco, like the retrofit for the entire Embarcadero. I worked on that project, and we got a lot of funding for that. During that period of course, we got word that the Presidio was going to be closed, and so that was of great interest to our office.
[tape is stopped and turned back on momentarily]
Haller: Among the issues that you worked on in Congresswoman’s Pelosi office, you started to say was the Presidio Trust issue, or at least you said it had come up. Now, was this an issue you worked with in her office a great deal?
Middleton: I did not work on this lot in her office. Judy Lemons[??] who is her chief-of-staff was the key person working on the Presidio. At that point—this was I guess 1989—I remember it particularly because I was with my wife in West Virginia—oh, she wasn’t my wife yet. But in West Virginia we at a bed and breakfast and I happened to pick up the Post—the Washington Post—and there it was. The Presidio closed and, of course, I knew that was going to change everybody’s life in the office [laughs]. And it did.
So, everybody really worked on it. Judy was the point person on it, and I assisted. I was the press secretary, so of course, that had a lot to do with—there’s a lot of press interest in it.
We were working pretty hard at the time to ensure that there would be adequate funding for the transition, because clearly when it went from the Department of Defense, and that kind of a budget environment, to the National Park Service, and that kind of a budget environment, we were concerned that there wouldn’t be enough money to fund the Presidio.
So, worked very closely with some other members of Congress, including, at the time, Barbara Boxer, who was a member of Congress not a senator yet. And I think Barbara actually represented the area that the Presidio is in. That got changed in 1990.
So, we worked with Barbara a lot. We worked with Congressman John Mertha a lot, who was the chairman of the subcommittee on defense appropriations. A key person there. George Miller[??] was involved. The Senate, senators were all involved. It was a group effort to try to get this money.
And ultimately, we did prevail in getting extensive amounts of money for infrastructure improvements here at the Presidio—even though this was DOD money, even though everyone knew that the Army was leaving. So that was kind of a gift to the park that the military made.
Haller: Well, that made a huge difference in the success of the transition, didn’t it?
Middleton: It really did. Because, you know, it’s a huge nut to crack still. We’re estimating now that we have about 580 million dollars worth of work to do at the Presidio just to get the forest in shape, and all the buildings restored, and site improvements made, to make it a really magnificent national park site.
But that really helped, you know, it really helped to get some of the fiber loop done, the basic infrastructure, most of which is under the ground, and you don’t see, but is critical to the operation of this place.
Gotta remember it was, this infrastructure, not only was very old, but it really wasn’t well mapped. And so, we just didn’t even know what the extent of the problem was until we got into it. And that money was tremendously helpful.
Haller: And that money is still coming at this point, and that, I guess, relates directly to those early efforts.
Middleton: Well, yeah. I mean, the money that the DOD provided, in—I guess it was ‘9-…I’m trying to remember now—’91, ’92, something like that—Was…you know, we’ve used that. That’s been expended, but now, of course the DOD has provided us will another 100 million for the environmental cleanup. And that was a result of a negotiation that occurred in 1998.
And when the Trust came in and there was a—after about a year and a half negotiation. And the help of Senator—now Senator—Boxer and Senator Feinstein and Congresswoman Pelosi, as well as John Mertha and Ralph Regula and others who had been involved in the beginning.
Resulted in a landmark agreement wherein the Department of Defense transferred a 100 million dollars to the Presidio Trust and the responsibility for cleaning up both Area A and Area B of the Presidio. The Park Service was a party to that—I guess it was DOI actually—was a party to that agreement. It was a three-way agreement between DOD, DOI, and the Presidio Trust.
Haller: Why do you refer to it as a landmark agreement?
Middleton: It had never been done before. Generally, the way these cleanups works is that it remains the responsibility of the military. And then you argue about the reuse authority—which in this case was us and the Park Service—argues with the military to get them to pay for things that would make the reuse more possible.
And it’s pretty clear that the Defense Department—it’s not a mission related activity to clean up military bases. That’s not the business they’re in. And we realized that particularly with the self-sufficiency, financial self-sufficiency clause in the trust act, that if we were going to be able to reuse these buildings, restore them, reuse them, we had to have control over the cleanup process.
And so that was really the impetus for that conversation, which ultimately resulted in the landmark agreement. Landmark not only because that kind of a transfer hadn’t been done before, but also because we got the largest private insurance policy ever written for environmental cleanup. A 100-million-dollar policy, which was put in place to cover us against any overruns.
So, we had a 100 million in cash and a 100 million in insurance, and hopefully that’ll all work. We’re still working it all out, we’re starting the cleanup now.
Haller: Well, I hope it does work. [clears throat] Why don’t we go back chronologically then and work our way back to the…We left this tread of thought with you working on funding issues and Congresswoman Pelosi’s office. What juncture in the Presidio story did you begin to work for GGNPA?
Middleton: I came out—well, of course, it was ’89 when the whole saga really started—I guess, ’72 when it started [laughs] but ’89 when it really got going in terms of the transfer, and the planning effort began then.
I was in Pelosi’s office until ’93. So, I came into working for the GGNPA in ’93. The Presidio Council had already been established.
Haller: I didn’t realize that.
Middleton: Nan Stockholm[??] was the staff director working under Greg Moore[??], for that Council, and I got a job working for Nan.
Haller: Well, tell us about the motivations, if you can then, for the creation of the Presidio Council. I understand you’re telling me it started before you got there, but if you could still shed some light on why the Presidio Council was started, how its original role was envisioned. Can you do that?
Middleton: Sure. I think that it became clear when the Park Service realized it was going to inherit this wonderful but complex military post, that it would be important to pull together some of the greatest minds in the country. In an advisory role to the Park Service to try to get some ideas about, not only what should the vision be for this place, but how should they run this place, you know? What did they need to do to take this 200-and-some-odd-year-old base and turn it into a national park?
Great opportunity and they didn’t want to squander it. And so, they put together, through the auspices of the GGNPA, a blue-ribbon panel of about thirty-five people. With luminaries in the business world and the arts world and architecture, landscape architecture, education, film, you know, you name it they were there. It was an interesting group of people.
And interesting not only because the individuals were interesting, but because the combination of these individuals was really quite astounding. And you’d have Jay Brody[??] from the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation talking to Maya Lyn, talking to Francis Ford Coppla, all in the same room talking about—brainstorming about ideas.
And so, it was really a great idea to have this group. And I think they were very, very productive and helped the planning process significantly. I would say they really spawned the whole idea of the Trust, although that’s not what they called it at that time. It ended up in the plans and public benefit corporation, but that really came out of this council.
So, I think that’s why it was put together. It was funded through the GGNPA by philanthropic funding, and we also got quite a bit of pro bono help from people like Mickensie[??] & Co. and others to do management studies. So.
Haller: Who were some of the most, eventually the most, influential people who worked, in quotes, “on the Council.”
Middleton: On the Council? Boy, so many offered. I would say though, just from my perspective, probably Jim Harvey[??], who was the chairman—of course, chairman and CEO of Transamerica—brought tremendous, I guess, gravitas to the whole process.
He was also a member of the board of the National Park Foundation. Had worked very closely with Senator Bradley[??] on water issues, and Congressman Mill[??] so he had very good contacts in Washington. Ran one of the biggest corporations in America, and also had wonderful contacts in San Francisco.
Had just a wonderful unassuming air about him. Sort of this confident, unassuming, intelligent air about him that really drew people to him. So, he was very influential, I think. A very practical guy. There’d be all these fanciful ideas floating around in the room and Jim would sort of bring them all back down to earth. So that was important.
Toby Rosenblat[??] played a big role in that, as well as chairman of the GGNPA that was sponsoring the Council. So, he was quite a player.
Roy Isenhart[??] was another wonderful mind who was there. Roy had a way of looking at things from a different angle. So, he would always bring that kind of, “Well, have you looked at it this way?” kind of attitude, which was really, really refreshing. And I think Roy is one of the more brilliant people I’ve ever met.
Jay Brody[??], who at the time executive director of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation. And had great practical experience, both in dealing with the Park Service—sort of these Park Service projects that were also sort of development projects. You know, he did Pennsylvania Avenue.
Historic preservation, he understood that very well. He understood Washington very well. And was very instrumental in helping us figure out how something like a Presidio Trust could be structured. And if you do look at the legislation, that created the Presidio Trust, there’s a strong resemblance to the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation legislation.
Maya Lyn. Creative, brilliance, combined with Gio Obata[??] and Lorie Olen[??], who had great design sense, and Francis Ford Coppola, who really cared about youth programs in the arts. And that whole side of it was really important, particularly in the context of the business side of it that Jim represented. So, it really kind of all came together there.
And then we had Virginia Smith[??] who was a college president, and she brought a great deal of practicality to it as well as vision. For me, what I found most useful was when you could take the vision that everybody was—which was…pretty large—and then somehow tie it to the place in a very practical way. People that could do that were the most influential.
Carl Anthony[??] was very important. He talked about environmental justice and how that could be furthered in, and how we could work to bring diversity to the park. And that was really important too.
There are others. Everybody brought something but those stand out in my mind. Bill Reilly[??] was also part of it. He wasn’t a member of the Council but was a consultant to the Council. And he is so articulate in putting together how the vision could be achieved. And he was close to Secretary Babbitt, and that was very helpful too. So
Haller: That’s very good, because…very useful to hear the personal side of what sometimes is a very procedural story. But very good to give it a human element, so, that was great. Thanks.
Middleton: Yeah, yeah. The come out, I can’t remember how many times we’d meet, but—some were more involved than others—but I think all of them found the Presidio extremely magical. And they’d come out and we’d spend time walking around, just envisioning, which was pretty fun.
Haller: How about the public involvement role. Was it ever intended for these folks to have play as the strong role in that regard?
Middleton: Oh, I think ultimately after some time passed. Now we’re getting into when I came I along, and, you know, I came along kind of at the end of the visioning process and the beginning of the “How do we make this happen process.”
And my experience, of course having been in the Congress, was with legislation and legislative strategy and that kind of thing. And these Council members then became advocates for what became the Presidio Trust legislation. It began as the Presidio Corporation and then, you know, evolved over three years to becoming the Presidio Trust.
Haller: How bout the role of the Citizen’s Advisory Commission of the GGNRA? That always had an important role and I imagine it did much of what—for the Presidio---what it was intended to do for the park as a whole. Which was be the primary public conduit for these ideas? Is that basically, correct?
Middleton: Yeah, I think that’s correct. The advisory commission, I would say, played a really important role the ensuring that the Presidio became a park. It’s important to realize during all of this, and you know from ’89 to ’94—or even ’96 when the Presidio Trust legislation actually was enacted—that the context of all of this was a lot of volatility in Congress.
Yes, in 1972 everybody knows Phil Burton put this in the law and that the Army every left that this would become part of the National Park system. But having said that it wasn’t carved in stone. Yes, it was in the law, but.
Keep in mind we were in difficult financial times. There was a lot of pressure. There was a federal deficit. We weren’t in a surplus era. We had a lot of people in Congress saying, “What are you talking about?”
Now, some estimates are that the Army spent 70 million dollars to maintain the park. Nobody really knows because of the way they accounted for it, it was hard to tell. But even during the transition we were looking at a number of 45 million dollars, and it, you know, was sort of shift from the DOD over to the Park Service.
Well, 45 million dollars for a national park—not a national park but a piece of a national park—was extraordinary. And no one really could afford it. Everybody thought that it was too much, and there were several efforts—and not only to de-authorize pieces of the Presidio, selling them off, the Letterman, the Public Health Service Hospital, the golf course, selling them off in order to pay for the rest of it.
But also, there were plenty of very close votes to actually just cut the money. That was the easiest thing to do, you know. Don’t de-authorize the park, just don’t fund it. And so, I remember one member of Congress, I was in the room, and he said, “You know, this is so extensive why don’t we just put a cyclone fence around it and let the grass grow until we figure out how to fund it?”
Well, you got a huge collection of historic properties that are going to deteriorate if you do that, and so, that wasn’t really an option. But that was the context in which we were working. So, I think it’s really important, because people just assume that this was always destined to be a national park and so therefore there really wasn’t any controversy about it.
Getting back to the advisory commission. They really kept pounding on the fact that this was destined to be a national park, and this was Phil Burton that put it in, and we had to keep it that way, and we had to fund it. And that was, I thought, a very valuable role that they played, reminding the public of the controversy that was there, and the important of us, sort of, standing together to make sure this was the best thing that could happen.
Of course, they were also involved very much in the plant and in the workshops and the hearings that went ‘round that planning process. Which was an extensive planning process, leading to that 1994 plant. So, they played a huge role. Many of those people are still on the Council, so there’s a sense on continuity that they bring.
Haller: This may have been prior to—
Middleton: Mission, I should say. Yes.
Haller: This may have been prior to when you arrived at GGNPA in 1993, but at some point, rather early on in the process the advisory commission formed a committee or a subcommittee under Joe Williams[??]. Rich Barker[??] was a part of it, and there was a third person whose name I haven’t pinned down. And they’re described, particularly by Hal Rothman in his work “The Park That Makes Its Own Weather,” as having been enlisted to support the Presidio planning effort.
Or rather I should rephrase that. Excuse me. Rothman talks about this citizen’s advisory commission having been enlisted to support the Presidio planning effort, and you just described a lot of what that support was. Now, there’s also this subcommittee chaired by Joe Williams[??], and I guess what I’m trying to ask is was the subcommittee the core of the kind of effort that you were describing? Or did they have a…was there a sort of particular task for this group, in this state?
Middleton: Yeah. You know, I gotta tell ‘ya, I don’t remember much about that subcommittee. I wish—I, you know, remember the payers but I just don’t remember exactly what their role was as opposed to what the full committee did, or the full commission did. So, I’m just not much help on that, I just don’t know.
Haller: ______[??]. That’s okay. When all these new folks started to interact with the Army and its two-hundred-year tradition at the Presidio, and its long and proud tradition of how they do things, I think there was a little bit of an adjustment period of everyone all around. Doug Nadeau has described that pretty adequately in terms of how the park service people learned to fit in with the Army and vice versa.
Rich Barkey[??] actually tells a story of joining their jogs that they used to do around the Presidio in formation, with Nadeau[??] in the lead. [Middleton laughs] And that that really helped break the ice.
What kind of reaction or how’d the ice get broken, or did it need to get broken with the Council members and the ranking officers in the Army?
Middleton: You know, I don’t think there was a tremendous amount of interaction between the Council and the Army. I do remember, though, that during this transition period the culture shock sort of thing. You know, where here you have the Park Service coming with this participatory ethic. And not necessarily—although they may be structured in a hierarchical fashion, everybody gets a say and it’s more of a consensus, especially under Brian. More of a consensus type of an operation than the Army, obviously, which is very top-down.
I would credit the success of the transition—two people come to mind and one of them is Mai-liis Bartling who developed a very good relationship with the Army, as did Mike Savidge. And I think they did a lot to really bridge that gap. And Mai-liis is so fair and so honest that, you know, it just transcended any kind of cultural difference.
And they worked together very closely on coming up with sub agreements that would govern the different transitional activities and worked very well on transitioning the budget from the Army to the Park Service.
I will also say, that when I became the first employee of the Presidio Trust—actually, working under B.J. Griffin[??]. I was an employee of the Park Service assigned to the Trust, in fact, I was an employee of the GGNPA assigned to the Park Service and then assigned to the Trust.
But! Mai-liis was my counterpart in the transition from the Park Service to the Trust, of Area B. And she, again, was a wonder to work with. And we’d sit down and work together on [sighs] this 25 million. How are we gonna spilt it up, who gets what, and what re we gonna do, and what are they gonna do? So, I could see why it would have worked between her and the Army.
But in terms of the Council, I don’t think that there was a whole lot of interaction.
Haller: Well, I can see what you mean about Mai-liis who has not only an extraordinary grasp of detail, but an ability to get right to the nub of a very complex matter very quickly. Now, you mentioned Mike Savidge. Maybe you could talk a little about his role. He was in—
Middleton: He was head of the transition team for the Park Service, and just seemed very capable in that role. He worked very well with the Army folks. And, I think, in between those two they had a whole team, but I remember mostly those two as being particularly useful.
[End of Tape 1, Side 1]
[Tape 1, Side 2]
Haller: Craig, you spoke about Mike Savidge and his leader of the transition team. Now, at the same time there was a planning team set up by the Park Service, and the head of that was originally Rodger Kelley-Brown[??]. And then he was replaced, fairly early on in the process, by Don Neubacher who stayed for quite some time.
Can you talk a little bit about those two people and their styles, and how one led to the other?
Middleton: Sure! I don’t know Rodger. I came after Rodger, I think. But I did know Don, and Don did run the panning side of it and had a great staff including Carrie Feierabend —who ended up becoming our planning director for a while and has just left us unfortunately.
Style. Don is kind of a soft-spoken guy, but really smart. And I was just amazed at how he and his team could pull together an extraordinary amount of workshops, and an extraordinary amount of public comment, into something that turned into a plan. It was just amazing.
I remember at the end, toward right before they published it, just…these guys were going nuts with all of these comments. And trying to figure out how to put what they’d gotten in this workshop with what they’d gotten in this visioning section. And then of course we added the complexity of this blue-ribbon panel that also wanted to have a shot at it. And he was very good at kind of putting it all together to come up with something cohesive.
Nancy Licht[??] who was on our staff at the GGNPA, Presidio Council staff, I think played a big role in that as well working with those two to come up with language for the vision statement and other parts of the plan.
So, we also fed in a lot of the implementation side, the implementation strategy that was put together to accompany the plan. But, you know, I think Don was great. And obviously he was very good because he went off and became the superintendent of Point Reyes. I enjoyed working with him.
Haller: You mentioned the extraordinary amount of public input. Do you think it was the right amount? Or was it kind of so over whelming, and so, I guess, broad going from alpha to omega in its ideas? That, I guess, the one conclusion that might be made is that there was so much input that it just made the process—it certainly made the work very hard, you’re implying—but was it the right amount to get the right—for the process—to get the right handle?
Middleton: I think it’s the right amount of public involvement. You know, this is a place—and it’s a role we’ve had to deal with, too—I think the planning process for GNPA…must have been a four-year process. It was a long process. But this was a place that was extraordinary, and it was a [post that had to become a park and was pretty much unique in that nation.
So, I guess, it required that. I think the difficulty, sometimes when you have so many different points of view, how do you come up with a cohesive document that isn’t just an amalgamation of a bunch of different points of view?
And I think that they did a fairly good job of it. We’ve been struggling with the same thing with out PTEMP, which is our plan that we just published—or are about to publish.
Haller: For the sake of posterity, what’s the PTEMP?
Middleton: Yeah, just so people know. Presidio Trust Management Plan. Yeah, we decided in 2000, the year 2000, to essentially update the GNPA which published in ’94 without the foreknowledge of the Presidio Trust and the self-sufficiency requirement. And a change in the Letterman, that, you know, UCSF would not be at Letterman, which had been anticipated when the first plan came out.
So, we did an update. It took us two years to do it, nine months of public comment. And I frankly don’t know how they [laughs] withstood four years but, uh, more power to ‘em.
Haller: Dr. Rothman in his book quotes Jim Harvey[??] as declaring that it was the release of the Presidio concept workbook, was a turning point in…the end of the visioning phase? Which you referred to also earlier. And the beginning of planning for new uses. Do you agree? Was that the, basically, the turning point?
Middleton: That’s probably about the right time, yeah.
Haller: So that’s about the time when you appeared?
Middleton: Yeah, I’m trying to remember when that came out.
Haller: Or switched hats?
Middleton: It’s right around then. Yeah, I agree with that. That visioning process was very long, frustrating. It’s hard to get a vision for a place down into one page [laughs]. Which they ultimately did, but it was hard.
Haller: So, in your mind what are some of the other key milestones of this long road from post to park?
Middleton: You know, a lot of my perspective comes from the congressional political side and this extraordinary effort to try to maintain the place as a park, and the integrity of the place as a park, in the context of an awful lot of political change in Washington. You know, the 1994 Gingrich revolution, the first time the House had become Republican controlled in a long time—in four years, I think—the budget deficit problems, the expense of the park, all of these things—trying to keep it going—that was really my perspective.
And I think that, for me, one of the pivotal things was when we came up with the idea of this public benefit corporation. Because it really was in many ways, as it became a piece of legislation, the thing that was gonna allow the park to be saved. Because it was the one thing that everybody could agree on.
You know, let’s create something that will sort of be a public/private partnership, help us with the authorities that the Park Service didn’t currently have—still doesn’t—to retain revenues for use in the park, to do long-term leasing. Prior to that act the only long-term leasing authority that the Park Service had was under the National Historic Preservation Act and it had hardly ever been used because it was so complex.
So, that was really important. And then as people started to understand that through this kind of a set-up, we might be able to actually do this thing without causing the taxpayer too much pain. It started to win acceptance and instead of people saying, “Let’s sell the park,” or, “Let’s disinvest in the park,” they started to say, “Let’s support this legislation that Pelosi and Feinstein/Boxer put in.”
And I think that really was pivotal. Because there was, I think it was 1994, an effort to sell the park. It was put in the budget in the senate, by the budget committee, to sell the park for 500 million dollars and use that to help balance the budget. Would not have gone a long way of balancing the budget, but, anyway, that was what they did.
Barbara Boxer and Hank Brown got that out of the budget, but it was just you felt like you had your finger in the dike and how much longer was it going to hold? Because each year the votes would get closer, and closer, and closer for disinvestment. I think we came do to, at one point, twenty-six votes and had it gone the other way, you know, all you’d have to do is flip fourteen votes and you would have lost. And that’s out of four hundred and thirty-five votes, so this was not a sure thing.
And that was in 1993 with the twenty-six votes—it might be twenty-eight, I can’t remember exactly. And then in ’94 the majority switched, so we knew we didn’t have the votes. So, we had to do something.
And I think that that was a very pivotal time when we had to come up with this idea. Now, of course, the original legislation and the final legislation weren’t exactly the same, but a lot of it was the same, there were some key differences. I think the original legislation had what was then called the Presidio Corporation, modeled after the PADC, within the Department of Interior. In fact, it may have even been within the Park Service. I can’t remember exactly, but that got switched so that it then became a separate entity—federal agency.
In the beginning there was no financial self-sufficiency requirement. That got added as did a couple of other things, but those were the two key differences between what passed in ’96 and what was introduced in ’93.
Haller: So, it sounds like it’s quite fair to say that the nature of the 1994 Congress has made a huge difference in the way history has turned out over here.
Middleton: Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s easy to over-play it. I think that in the final analysis the financial self-sufficiency—although it was considered pretty Draconian—galvanized a lot of support around the bill. And it wasn’t only Republican support, it was bi-partisan support. The bill passed by an extraordinary margin, and part of the idea was that this would be, you know, they would hold our feet to the fire and really make us act like a financially responsible agency, that would have a goal at the end of which if we didn’t meet the goal the park would be sold.
Now, you know, certainly nobody would want to see that happen and that was a piece of the bill that was a compromise that had to be made in order to get it through. But it, hopefully, will never happen, I don’t think it will.
I think it that really did go a long way toward galvanizing pi-partisan support for the bill. We also put the GNPA in the bill. This was at Nancy Pelosi’s insistence that the park plan be referenced in the bill, in order to balance the other side. So it created quite a nice balance between, I think we called it the General Objectives of the GNPA, and then the financial self-sufficiency.
And the financial self-sufficiency without having had the other might have tipped it too far in one direction so it turned out to be pretty balanced.
Haller: As I recall—in fairness, also I think I’m correct—in recalling the original version talked about the objectives of the GNPA and the final version talked about the general objectives of the GNPA.
Middleton: Yeah, I think the first version in ’93 didn’t even talk about the objectives. I think it just said the GNPA. I mean I think it was…Boy, that’s a long time ago [laughs]. But I think that that’s what it said. So that was a change, yeah.
Haller: At the time that we’re talking about this key juncture with a new kind of Congress, and a new kind of trust legislation passed, people often used the phrase that this was a new kind of national park, implying a model for the future. And over time I hear it more being spoken of as a unique kind of national park, which to me implies what we’ve been talking about at creation strongly influenced by a moment in time. Do you have any opinion on that subject? Do you think this is likely to be a model for other national parks in the twenty-first century? Or is this indeed something that works for a particular case and a particular time?
Middleton: I think the—going back to the new kind of national park—I think that was a slogan that was put together in the early days by the Park Service and probably the Council. And it was a great slogan, “a new kind of national park,” or “a park for the twenty-first century,” or something like that, there were a couple of ‘em.
I’ve always felt that this is extremely unique. That this model does not work in the traditional sense for traditional national park. It wouldn’t work at Yosemite, it wouldn’t work at Yellowstone, it wouldn’t work at most, if not all, parks. It might have some relevance to a place that has an awful lot of historic buildings. Maybe it could be used in parts of Gateway.
But by and large—and I think that you’ve hit on a point that’s really critical in sort of the, I consider, the trust/park service relationship to be akin to a marriage. And we’ve had our ups and downs in the marriage and certainly some of the downs have been around the concern by park service people that this would become a model and be used over and over. And it would be used by people who wanted to make the Park Service self-sufficient in some way.
And it just doesn’t apply. And I think that, you know, we’ve understood now that this is a very unique model. Where I think it could be useful is in protection [background humming gets louder] of lands and—maybe not so much lands, but, let me say, assets for public use.
I think that the Presidio Trust model could be used, or should be viewed, as not a model for the parks in the National Park system, but as the protection of lands, particularly in urban areas—or assets in urban areas, or perhaps military bases that become decommissioned in urban areas particularly—where it’s becoming more challenging for us to preserve spaces for the public to enjoy.
It’s not as easy as just buying a big tract of land and just preserving it. Now we have complex situations in urban areas. And maybe this could be viewed as kind of one way of preserving…assets for public use.
I get calls all the time from other areas of the country and even from other places in the world—Sydney Harbor Trust, for example, down in Sydney, Australia. They have a similar situation where—of course, they have the big harbor and they had the military fortifications along the harbor, and now that’s been turned into public lands. They’ve created the Sydney Harbor Trust which is a crown[??] trust that is very similar to the Presidio Trust. They have financial mandates—it’s very, very similar. And they’ve been up her e a couple of times to talk to us about how we set it up.
Governor’s Island in New York is another example. And there’re plenty others, but they don’t really fall into the category of the traditional national park. And I think that our marriage has been much better since we both—the Park Service and the Trust—have come to that realization.
There are people out there who would like to make more trusts. There’s been an Oklahoma City Trust, there’s been a…the Villas Calderas[??] Trust down at Baca[??] Ranch, and so in some cases we’ll see if they work.
But I would say it only works when you have a lot of buildings, and you have revenue potential. And we’re close to an urban area with tremendous revenue potential. So, it does make some sense that you preserve the building by reusing them and you reuse them and therefore create revenue to support the park. It really does make sense here; it doesn’t make sense very many other places.
Haller: Well, it, indeed, is also not coincidence that GGNRA is a park, really spearheaded the adaptive reuse of historic buildings in national parks. It certainly wasn’t the first, but it certainly also was the one that was, as they say about some Southern Calvary general, “was the firstest with the mostest.”
Middleton: [laughs] That’s for sure.
Well, we have more historic buildings in this park, GGNRA, than anywhere, I think.
Haller: At Anne Arbor[??] National Park—
Middleton: Right, right.
Haller: And where, I believe, the three of the ten regions in the national parks—
Middleton: Yeah, I’m not surprised.
Haller: —are in the system.
Middleton: Well, Brian O’Neill has been a wonderful advocate of partnerships. And, you know, it’s worked. It really has worked. It is the only way to preserve this kind of square footage of historic building. You know, we can’t restore them and put them in mothballs, we have to reuse them.
Haller: Absolutely. Speaking of Brian, can you talk a little about his particular, unique contributions to this process?
Middleton: Sure! I’d love to talk about Brian now.
Haller: Let’s talk about Brian.
Middleton: Let’s talk about Brian! I have a wonderful working relationship with Brian. I’ve known him for a long time. And through all of this Brian—and I say all of this meaning, the ups and downs of the marriage, [laughs] which has been intense at times. Brian has always been a really good partner.
He really does value, not only the concept, but the actual working of partnerships. Understanding that they can be difficult, understanding that there’s give and take, but ultimately convinced that it’s the best thing to do. Not only for the park but for the community that surrounds the park.
And he’s a great advocate of pulling in community to help restore public assets. I think it’s been a great success here at GGNRA. So much so that now people are asking him to go all over the world and talk about how to establish partnerships. So I think the ear of us being able to do everything with federal money, or state money, or with taxpayers’ money, without creating partnerships is probably over, as budgets get more and more constrained and cost go up.
I think the partnership model is a good one, and we’ve got some great examples here at the Presidio: the San Francisco Film Center, or the Therou[??] Center, or any number of other buildings where private capital has been brought to bear to restore a historic building.
In fact, the whole idea of historic tax credits that’s in the National Historic Preservation Act, is predicated on the idea that a private sector organization would come in and take a tax credit to restore a historic building. And obviously public sector organizations don’t value from tax credits.
The only way we value from that tax credit is by partnering with the private sector. So we bring in the private sector partner, they get the tax credit, and that savings is passed onto the public sector. So…It’s working here and Brian has been a great advocate for it.
Haller: Can you think of any specific vignettes or incidents [Middleton chuckles] where Brian’s partnership skills or his other skills made a difference? In an illustrative example perhaps?
Middleton: [pauses] Let me come back to that one. Let me think about it.
Haller: Yeah, we can come back to that. If something pops up.
Middleton: Because there’s so many—
Haller: Sure.
Middleton: I’m just trying to think of one that’s particularly illustrative.
Haller: Well, let’s talk about some of the other kinds of charac—players.
Middleton: Characters, obviously! [both laugh]
Haller: Characters is a loaded word, yeah. Players who worked for the Park Service or at any other organizations, GGNPA and the like—or the Trust—that contributed to this Presidio that we partner with and that we both care about so much.
Middleton: Yeah.
Haller: Let’s say Robert Chandler. He came at a time when the GNP was…
Middleton: No, he could—
Haller: Well, tell me when did you two work—
Middleton: I’m not exactly sure exactly when Bob came, but I do remember Bob coming [laughs]. I can’t tell you the…What was really great about Bob’s coming was, and I know this probably caused some problems within the Park Service, but you can talk to other people about that.
Haller: Oh, well, we want to hear about that sort of stuff.
Middleton: They didn’t write it off, somebody, I guess maybe it was Roger Kennedy[??] who was head of the Park Service at that time. Now, incidentally Roger Kennedy[??] was on the Presidio Council, later became head of the Park Service.
And because of the uniqueness and the prominence and probably because of the capacity for this to become a negative if it went badly—the Presidio, to become a negative for the Park Service—the decision was made, I think by Rodger, to have somebody appointed as the general manager of the Presidio that would report directly to the director of the Park Service.
Not through Brian, even though this was part of the GGNRA. I don’t think it was an issue of Brian’s capacity or anything, it was just an issue of how prominent the Presidio had become in Congress and how important it was that we do it right. And so, he wanted to have that direct contract.
So, Bob came. Bob had been, you know, like the Superintendent Extraordinaire Everglades, Olympic, Grand Canyon. You know, he had supervised all of the big parks, or a lot of them, and considered a pro at this.
And he came in and my experience with Bob was, you know, here’s this guy who’d done all of these things, and he was not arrogant, he was a very decent, down-to-earth individual who was very capable. I thought ran that, what they called the project office for the Park Service, very, very well. And was very practical, he got along very well with members of the Presidio Council. Like Jim Harvey, who was also a very practical man.
I thought he was extraordinary. He really also did well in Washington for the Park Service and for the Presidio in dealing with the members of Congress who were concerned about it.
So, I enjoyed working with Bob a lot and, in fact, I still see him once in awhile, it’s kinda nice.
Haller: Apparently the Council stepped aside, as Morathan[??] puts it in his book, as Chandler arrived. Now, is that merely coincidental that the Trust had been established, at least legislatively, and its Council’s work heads was more or less done at that point when Chandler arrived? Or did it have something at all to do with Chandler’s ability to really show—
Middleton: No, I think it didn’t really have that much to do with Bob Chandler. It had to do with—the Council actually decided to disband on September 30th, 1994, which was the date of the transition from the post to park. In fact, we had a little ceremony and closed it off.
I think the Council became—I don’t know what they called themselves. But they wanted to stay involved but as a Council disbanded. The idea was they felt that their contribution had been in helping the Park Service with the vision, helping the Park Service with understanding what the management roles entailed, and what kind of partner might be appropriate in that management capacity.
Worked on the first piece of legislation, with the 1993 legislation, which was the Presidio Corporation Act. Worked with Mackenzie[??] and Company to come up with a whole idea of this public partnership—or public/private partnership—and how that should be structured. Should it be a non-profit, should it be a federal agency, should it be a private entity?
And I think that they felt that they had made their contribution and that was an appropriate time to disband. I think Bob’s entry onto the scene was pretty much coincidental with that.
Haller: I see.
Middleton: Certainly not a cause.
Haller: You mentioned the Mackensie[??] Report and that’s noted in several works, Lisa Bends[??] work on the Presidio as well as Hal Rothman’s[??] work, as being a very important document. And my impression is that this document essentially analyzed and articulated the germ of the idea of a public benefit trust that the corporation had hatched, if you will, and laid it out and analyzed it in black and white? Do I have the essence of that correct?
Middleton: Yeah, well, you know the Mackenzie[??] Report really is a misnomer. There never really was a report. It was really more of a process that resulted in some draft documents, but never was actually pulled together into a report.
But the process was really valuable. And what essentially was done was that we did some—with the help of Mackenzie[??]—analysis as to what was needed. Clearly, we needed revenue. We needed to be able to hold onto the revenue. We needed leasing ability. So, we listed out all those things that we needed, and then we went, and we looked at all different types of structures that were in existence already.
Like the Toronto Harbor, Waterfront Harbor Trust, or something like that. I can’t remember the name of it—Williamsburg[??], Lowell[??], PADC. I think we looked at fifteen or sixteen of them. I can’t remember all of them now—redevelopment organizations, you know, government type organizations, state organizations, federal organizations, private organizations. TVA[??] was one.
And so, the idea was to, “Okay, what’s the best model?” Or should we create a hybrid? And I think ultimately it just came down to we thought we needed to rely on appropriations for this park. At that point we weren’t thinking about it becoming financially self-sufficient.
So, clearly a federal park was going to have to have appropriations, and the best way to have appropriations was to create an entity that was federal. You can give appropriations to a private sector entity, or like a nonprofit, but it’s not common.
So, we decided what we needed it to be was very flexible in its management approach, and not be bound up in some of the red tape that other agencies are bound up with. So, we started looking at models and the federal corporation holy[??] owned government corporation turned out to be the best model. PDAC happened to be one of those. But there are probably thirty other ones that are each one very singular and different from any other.
FDIC, TVA, PDAC, the Saint Lawrence Seaway[??], I mean, they’re very different creatures but they all have one thing in common. And that’s that they have a charter which is in the legislation and that creates the basis for the organization to exist. It’s charted by Congress, then it’s federal, and it receives federal appropriations.
So, that was the model that was chosen.
Haller: So, if anything the series of Mackenzie[??] draft documents, if you will, informed the way the Presidio Corporation Act got written?
Middleton: Yes.
[End of Tape 1, Side 2]
[Tape 2, Side 1]
Haller: This is Steve Haller and I’m here with Craig Middleton at the Presidio Trust Headquarters [Middleton coughs] on June 14th, 2002. This is Tape 2 of an oral history interview with Craig.
Craig, we’ve spoken quite a bit about the history of—well, the entire process of—military post to national park to the Presidio Trust. Yet, I wanted to concentrate, if you will, on this side of the tape, with your work with the Presidio Trust. We talked about how that trust was a new kind of undertaking, modeled after some existing organizations that came into being at a particular point in time. When it came into being, I understand, that you actually got to be [laughs] the first employee of the new Presidio Trust. Is that true? And can you tell us a little about what [laughs] that was like?
Middleton: [laughs] Yeah, it was true. We had a board. We had a board of seven, appointed by the president, and me. And I did have some help over in the Park Service for some time, but it was great, it was just great. I set myself up in Building 10 over on Funston Avenue. My biggest decision was where to put my office.
And then I ultimately hired a temp named Frank Pratt[??], who ended up being hired full-time as my assistant. And we set about to figure out just the basic things. Here we were a federal agency, a creature of the federal government, but I couldn’t write a check. I couldn’t buy anything. I had no money. I had no ability a piece of furniture. I couldn’t get a phone line.
All of this was because of we needed to set up all the structures that a federal agency would have in order to access money. And people over at the Park Service were a great help. Leo Gillery[??] helped us with our—He’s the contracting officer over at the GGNRA—helped me work up a set of interim procurement procedures.
Of course, of procurement piece in the legislation was different than any other federal agency. And that was the case all the time. Our personnel situation was different than other federal agency, our procurement situation was different that any other federal agency, our ability to retain revenues was different. So everything was different and yet we had to set up some procedures in order to operate.
I had to set up some basic personnel policies before I could hire anybody. And, you know, how can you create and agency if you don’t hire anybody? Meanwhile I had OMB[??] calling me because we had to put together our first budget, and the question is, “Well, how much money are you going to need for the next year or two?” [laughs] How many people are you going to have? And here I was sitting there alone in an office trying to figure it all out. It was really fun.
And, so, we did it. We did it. I was wrong on a few things; I thought we might have forty people after a couple years. I think we ended up with two hundred…because we made some decisions to hire people rather than contract out.
But it was fabulous, really. I did that for Bill Reilly[??] and the board had asked me top take this on, I think it was in May of—must’ve been—1997. And the executive director, Jim Meadows[??], started right around New Year’s of ’98.
So, I did this eight months or so, seven or eight months.
Haller: So, it’s setting up this trust, getting it ready, who really helped you? Who were the characters that helped you? Key players with the trust?
Middleton: Well, there’s a guy named Craig Crutchfield[??] who was really helpful. He and I hadn’t met but we talked on the phone a lot and figured out things. He was very interested in this as a new kind of organization as well. And so, I guess, we were both sort of public administration wonks and we had a good time together trying to figure out how to do it.
Jim Mikelightner[??] helped on the personnel side. He was a Park Service’s Regional Office. And got a lot of help from Leo Gillery[??]. Our board was extraordinarily helpful, you know, I had quite a bit of knowledge and experience on the board. And so, they were very—And Toby was great. Mary Murphy[??] helped an awful lot. Don Fischer[??] helped a lot.
So, that was very useful. Mai-liis helped us kind of with setting up the original budgetary processes. She was very helpful, you know, I kinda just picked her brain. That was useful.
I relied on Greg Moore[??] and other people over at the Parks Association. And some of their board members as well, who I knew from, my past association with them. And then on the political side, Nancy Pelosi was great and Judy Lemmons[??] was like a constant ally in making sure that we got through those first couple of years in the appropriations process, without a hitch.
So, there were a lot of people involved, but I was really lucky to be the guy—You know, I had a Master’s in Public Administration where you study all this stuff and it was really kind of amazing to be in the position of being able to put together a federal organization, or a federal agency. It was a great experience.
Haller: Now when Jim Meadows came here how did he affect the corporate culture, as they would say, of the trust? How did he put his stamp on things?
Middleton: Well, Jim is a—how do I say? Extraordinarily energetic guy, who came in here and just wanted to get it moving right away, and in some respects, we had to prove ourselves to a lot of people that we could actually accomplish things. And he was really accomplishment oriented, so he came in here like gang busters and it was just Frank and I [laughs] and Jim. And then we brought in some people, but we immediately started to hire people, quickly.
And we made decisions about bringing in the Park Service maintenance crews. So, we did do that, and we hired about a hundred Park Service people to do maintenance. We decided to hire, at this time—of course the economy was booming—and so getting contractors was a long-drawn-out process and a very expensive one, because they charged you thirty percent more because they were so busy, they didn’t need the work. So, we hired construction people.
In two or three years we’d gone from me and Frank to…four hundred people, four hundred and fifty people. It was an extraordinary growth, and it was really driven my Jim, who really wanted us to move, move, move, and move fast. So, he brought that kind of energy to the place, and I think that was probably appropriate.
He also brought, though, a sense of…I think it was threatening to the Park Service. So, when I talk about our marriage [laughs] that was not the highest point of our marriage. There was this sense that we knew how better to do than they did. And I’m not sure that was really warranted, I think that what was really the issue was that the Park Service had been set up to do something that was [coughs] not exactly what we were doing here.
And they didn’t have the authority, for one thing, to do it. They hadn’t hired the expertise to do it. That’s not the kind of expertise the Park Service had. So, you know, there was a sense of turf. There was a sense of “we lost the park,” I think, from the side of the Park Service. I don’t think we were as sensitive as we could have been to understanding that. But we got a lot done [laughs] and I think that now we are moving more into a full partnership position with the Park Service, which is partly a function of time having passed, which I think needed to happen, with some wounds being healed, and sort of our emergence as—our meaning the Trust’s emergence—as a full federal partner. Which I don’t think was really there before. We were kind of the little kid on eth block and now we’ve kind of proven ourselves. I give a lot of credit to Jim for that.
Now we’re much better positioned to be a full partner with the Park Service, and I think that’s the direction we’ll go.
Haller: Do you think it’s fair to say, looking at it from the Park Service side, that the understandable need to serve yourself as the Trust, or, as you just put it, go from being the new kid on the block to being a full-fledged partner, also contributed in some way to the roughness of the early stages of the marriage?
Middleton: Yeah, I do, I do. We’ve talked about how in 1993 when we started this legislative journey…and in the plan itself, the GNPA where they talk about a public benefit corporate partner, public benefit entity. From the Park Service side, I think it was always envisioned that the trust, or whatever it was called, was going to be a part of the Park Service. It wasn’t going to be a separate entity.
And, in fact, there was no sense that there would be a separation in terms of land. There wouldn’t be an Area A that was owned under the jurisdiction of one agency, the Park Service, and the other, the trust, would have Area B. But that it would be more of a functional difference, so that the trust or the corporation would be in charge of real estate, and in charge of, sort of, bringing people into the buildings, and rehabbing the buildings. And the Park Service would be doing the plants and, you know, other things that the Park Service particularly had expertise in.
And the trust would essentially work fro the Park Service. It would almost be like the business office of the Park Service. So clearly [laughs] the model that emerged was very different in that we had legislation that actually transferred jurisdiction from the Park Service to another entity, which was the Trust.
Now eighty percent of the Presidio would be under the jurisdiction of a different federal agency, not working for the Park Service, not even under the Department of the Interior. So, we would report to the President and so would the Secretary of Interior. And the connection would be through our board, which would include the Secretary of the Interior.
It was a very different construct then was originally envisioned by the Park Service. And I think that there were—I can’t speak for the Park Service, but my guess is that there was a lot of concern and resentment that it had turned out that way, and that they had to shift jurisdiction in 1988 to this new entity.
So, there was competition, there was, probably, some concern about what would happen if the Trust was particularly successful. This issue of would it become a model. Very threatening to the Park Service.
So, I think that played as well. And then we had, sort of, this brash new agency
that was coming in, and they were gonna get things done, and, you know, a bunch of newcomers. I had been around for awhile but most of the people were kinda new, and quite a different corporate culture. Much more of a—under Jim, anyway—much more of a top-down kind of culture, not a consensus-type thing like the Park Service is used to.
So, there are a lot of issues that played into this difficulty in the marriage.
Haller: You brought up an interesting point when you talked about how the Trust became not a part of the NPS and it wasn’t something that so much shared management in a woven together fabric kind of way, but rather it became part Area A and Area B. We had talked about how the creation of the trust act in its final form was very much an example of a particular Congress, a particular point in time, a particular philosophy.
There is also part of that point in time was a real strong anti-government philosophy, or political vein, in Congress. That less government is better than more government. And would you think that also has a place in the marriage, if you will? Or in the uncertainty of the Park Service and with the Presidio Trust being created?
Middleton: Could be. I think that there was also at the same time this whole notion of reinventing government. The Al Gore thing that was going on at that time, and this notion if you could just run government like the private sector, it would be great. Government’s great but if it could only be made more efficient somehow by making it more like the private sector.
Now in recent history we’ve understood that maybe the private sector isn’t all that efficient either [laughs]. But that was where we were at in the mid- ‘90s. I think that played into it a lot. This was kind of a reinventing government thing.
If you look at our procurement exemptions from federal law, if you look at our exemptions from Title Five of the Civil Service in the Civil Service provisions, what that really says is we want management to have flexibility in hiring and firing and setting pay. We don’t want to encumber this organization with the difficulties inherent in the Civil Service system in terms of management.
The same thing with the procurement. Yeah, we’re going to require reasonable competition, but we’re gonna leave it somewhat ill defined and let the Trust come up with its own provisions, rather than having a federal acquisitions regulations all apply.
So it was that. And I don’t know how that played into the marriage issue, but it certainly was different. It created a different corporate culture, and, certainly, the corporate culture was [smacks fist in hand] get things done, and we want to show that we can to that.
Haller: What’s your contribution to the corporate culture?
Middleton: My contribution?
Haller: Yeah, Craig. How do you—
Middleton: You mean now? You mean now?
Haller: Yes, I mean now. How do you want to see this Trust operate? And how would you describe your goals in that regard?
Middleton: Yeah, I would say that [laughs] maybe I’m a product of reinventing government, but I do really believe in government. I think government is essential and I take great umbrage at people who downplay its significance and importance, particularly as it relates to the protection of federal assets or providing equity in the society for people.
Having said that, I think that government can be more efficient, I really do. And I have seen, through the Trust, an ability to accomplish things that I think it has been very, very interesting and very successful.
So, I guess, I would just like to make this thing work in a way that kind of embraces what Brian’s been talking about for years, which is this partnership ethic. I just don’t see why if we are managing eighty percent of the Presidio and the Park Service is managing twenty percent of the Presidio—and the rest of the park in which we sit—we should not be joined at the hip. I do think we should, and we should develop teams that work together on any number of issues and get beyond the issues of jurisdiction.
I actually think that Congress probably was right, and I know this won’t go over real well, but I think that Congress was right in that when they decided that it would work better if there were separate jurisdictions. I think it would have been very difficult to try to create the corporate culture that we have within the Park Service. I think it would have been hard to do that.
I think there would have been a lot of resentment. Had we not had the authority and the power to be able to get our own budgets and do that kind of thing, we might have been stymied by people who would say, you know, “You can’t do it this way, you can’t do it that way,” in the Park Service.
I actually think that having given us jurisdiction and allowed us to develop a separate government entity was a smart idea. Now the challenge is to take this one entity and make it work with the other entity. And I am very optimistic about it. I think the people that we have…One good thing is so many people from the Park Service came to work for us. So, there’s a mixing of the culture already, and I think it will work.
Haller: Well, as we kind of conclude this interview, I’d like to ask you to think a little bit about any key moments, junctures, or thoughts that we may have overlooked in terms of describing the transition from post to park to trust, if you will.
Anything we haven’t talked about yet that you think, “Ah, that was something I would have liked to have discussed.”
Middleton: Well, there is just a little story that is kind of funny. I don’t know how important it is but it’s a funny one.
Having been involved in both the Council and the creation of the Trust—in terms of the act—and then the creation of the actually Trust. I would describe the whole thing as an extraordinary roller coaster ride. It never just went sort of straight up [laughs] or straight down, it just went all over the place.
And one of the key times that I remember this was in 1994 at the end of the Congress. We had passed the Trust Act, this was the 1993 version of the Trust Act, the first version, called the Corporation then. Passed it through the House, passed it through the Senate, passed it through the Conference, it was going back to the—it had passed the Conference Report though the House.
So, we had gone through this extraordinary labyrinth of process. Diane Feinstein and Barbara were carrying it on the Senate side. It was the last day of the session, it was up for a voice vote, [coughs] and there was a hold on it. Senator Dole[??] had put a hold on it, on the Trust Act.
And the other major piece of legislation that was up, also sponsored by Diane Feinsein[??], was the Desert Protection Act. And there was clearly, although it was not said, that both were going to pass [laughs]. And it was also clear which one won’t [laughs more].
But prior to that we thought we were going to get it. We thought we were going to get the hold off and it was going to be cool. So I was back in Washington, we ordered a whole bunch of sourdough French bread. Huge box of it to be sent up from here to Washington. And we were going to provide, you know, just thank people with the sourdough. Not a big gift but just something from San Francisco.
Well, the box arrives, the bill dies, and I’m sitting there with Judy Lemmons[??] eating loaf, after loaf, after loaf of sourdough [laughs]. Thinking, “Oh, my God, we’re going to have to do this all over again.” Because you know in the next Congress you have to reintroduce and start from scratch.
At that time, we didn’t know that the Gingrich[??] revolution would’ve occurred and the political landscape that we’d be dealing with in the following Congress would be so different. But, anyway, it was just one of those roller coater rides. [laughs]
Haller: So, you dealt with it, but sourdough didn’t become sour grapes?
Middleton: [laughs] Thank God it was good.
Haller: Forgive a bad pun. I dealt with some other people who we haven’t mentioned that played some important roles, and ones that come immediately to my mind, although I’d be glad to hear from you in this regard, are Greg Moore[??] and BJ Griffen[??] also.
Do you have any things you want to say about their contribution?
Middleton: Well, Greg was my boss when I first came to the GGNPA. He ran that extraordinary organization and still does. Really put together the Presidio Council with the help of Toby and Roy[??].
He was sort of the force behind a lot of the Presidio Council. Nan worked for him, I worked for Nan, we all worked for him. And he testified on behalf of the Presidio Trust legislation in Congress when it was up. I can‘t remember which year but he was there.
And an extraordinarily talented individual who helped us in so many ways. Trying to marry the community and the sensibilities of the Park Service with the rough and tumble in Washington, that I was familiar with. Greg had come from eth Park Service, he understands the Park Service very, very well, he gets along beautifully with Brian, they’re great friends.
So, there was this wonderful connection. We was kinda like the glue between this rough and tumble—which was often very critical of the Park Service, it turned out that way in the political mumbo-jumbo that happened out there. And on the ground sensibility of the Park Service. He was really, really a great person of great integrity. Still is.
Well, what can I say? BJ hired me [laughs]. Actually, she was very flexible.
Haller: She hired you as...?
Middleton: Well, it was a funny construct because here we were, we had the Trust, we’d gotten the Trust Act through. We had the board; the President appointed the board. We had no way to hire anybody. You know, we had to create a personnel policy and an ability to pay people in order to hire anyone.
But somebody had to get it started. So, we came up with this crazy way of doing it, which was: I was working for GGNPA, I was detailed to BJ Griffin[??], so she was my boss. And then BJ assigned me to Toby Rossenblath[??]
[laughs] So I was kind of working for Toby and I was kind of working for BJ. What really happened was I’d go over and report to BJ every week or so, and I’d talk to Toby every day or so. And Mai-liis and I would figure out how to deal with all the inconsistencies of that crazy position.
But I had a great time working with her, with BJ. And I know she and Jim didn’t always get along, and that was kind of tough for a while there. But she always treated me really well, was very supportive.
Haller: Well, that’s great. I want to thank you for your time, and I guess before we leave, I’ll just ask you, do you have any concluding thoughts you’d like to get out there?
Middleton: I guess just that I hope that we, if we haven’t already, that we will dispel this notion that somehow the Presidio Trust is a threat…to traditional government or to the Park Service specifically.
I think that Brian’s approach, and certainly my approach, is let’s build this thing as a win-win, as a partnership that helps the park system, and will certainly help the Park Service, and certainty’s going to help the GGNRA.
And I think that’s the sentiment with which I would like to leave this interview [laughs].
Haller: Well, thank you for that sentiment. I think it’s a fine one. It reminds me of how Rothman[??] said a one point in his history of the park that the Trust, in some ways, protects the National Park Service. Maybe that’s part of what he meant, as you just described it.
Middleton: Hmm…Well, I don’t know about that, but certainly I think that what the Trust does is allow the National Park System to extend its reach into areas that may not traditionally have been considered National Park sites, so that we can together preserve—I mean, look at this park.
We’ve got State Parks in here, we’ve got the Trust, we’ve got all these different kind of jurisdictions all embraced by the GGNRA. And, you know, if in the future we as a society want to preserve lands for public use and enjoyment, we’re going to have to get creative, and this is a great example of how we can get creative and make it work.
Haller: Thanks a lot for your time, Craig. I really enjoyed sharing it with you.
Middleton: Sure. Thank you.
[End of Tape 2, Side 1]
[End of Interview]
Description
Craig Middleton discusses some political aspects of Presidio being turned into a national park, and becoming the acting executive director of the Presidio Trust. As well as thoughts and feelings of the Trust Bill, its effects and possible future applications.
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