By ZACH URNESS/Salem Statesman-Journal
The number of rangers being assaulted and harassed by visitors at Oregon’s state parks has increased over the past three to four years, spurring the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department to seek legal changes in the way it handles incidents that can turn violent.
At a two-day meeting last week of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission, the agency said it was planning legislation for 2023 that would give rangers added protection and increase the penalty for assaulting them.
The meeting also saw significant changes to the plan for managing drones within Oregon state parks and along the Oregon Coast, likely delaying new rules for at least a year while state officials make the plan more specific, following an outcry in public comments.
Finally, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department said it would begin exploring a law that would give the agency exemption from some state statutes, allowing it more economic flexibility, making it similar to semi-government agencies like Travel Oregon, the Oregon Lottery or the Oregon Stair Fair.
Parks spokesman Chris Havel said assaults and harassment of park rangers has increased as the number of people visiting parks has skyrocketed, setting a record for both day and overnight visits in 2021.
Havel said simple requests, such as asking people to keep their dogs on a leash, have turned into an argument more often than in the past, and that has led to threats and even assaults. He didn’t have a number of the increase off-hand, he said.
“Our rangers are trained to deescalate a situation, but that doesn’t always work,” he said. “Because of how the law is written, staff would have to go to court to get a personal restraining order and it’s too much on the individual rather than the agency, and that’s something we want to fix.”
“We do see it as an increasing problem, and not just at busy parks — it can happen anywhere and it has over these past few years.”
That change would require legislation routed through the Oregon Legislature during the 2023 session.
Drone rules put off as parks tries to increase specificity
The original plan for drones at state parks was for the agency to approve rules that allowed them to create maps that showed where drones were allowed and not allowed. In essence, they would create “no drone zones” while also leaving space where people could take off and land unmanned aircraft.
But the vagueness in those plans brought an outcry from those worried it would allow parks to simply create maps with limited oversight that might not consider ecologically sensitive areas or might be overly restrictive.
Given that, the commission asked parks to expand its group studying the issue and create the maps first, perhaps for every state park and the Coast, before they were approved so people could see the specifics of the plan, Havel said.
“We’re going to get specific about the standards,” Havel said. “We’d go park by park and have what the maps would look like.”
That is going to take extra time — more than a year most likely — so in the meantime, parks will continue the plan it has had in place where park managers can make decisions on a case by case basis about drone flights.
In another legislative concept discussed at last week’s meeting, OPRD “would begin the transition away from strategically-selected state statutes and rules required of all state agencies that do not meet the long-term business needs of the agency mission.”
Every Oregon agency has to follow specific rules, Havel said, and in some cases that might slow down the ability to repair a park through the bidding process or limit the contracts they can offer to recreation vendors.
Some other state agencies, including Travel Oregon, the Oregon State Fair and SAIF Corp. have gained exemptions to some state rules, and OPRD wants to consider something similar. Havel said any changes would not impact the way OPRD managed state parks.
Havel stressed that the concept was more exploratory than concrete at this point.