For the past 30 years, the state Bureau of Parks and Public Lands has given free group admissions to Mainers with disabilities. That policy suddenly was discontinued this year but then quickly reinstated.
A legislative committee is considering an emergency measure aimed at preventing similar decisions in the future.
Rep. William Tuell, R-East Machias who is legally blind, heard about the policy changes from the Parks and Public Lands Bureau shortly after the first of the year. The agency announced that because of budgetary constraints, it would no longer offer a free pass to parks and historic sites for groups that assist Mainers with disabilities.
Tuell told the Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee on Thursday that he tried for weeks to get a response from the department, and then, reluctantly, used his authority as a lawmaker.
“It was not my intention to put in a late bill, rather to see that the issue get resolved quickly so that disabled Mainers can continue to enjoy the same level of access to state parks that we all love,” Tuell said.
Tuell said the bill to force the bureau to reinstate free group passes finally got the agency’s attention, and bureau officials said they would agree to go along. But Tuell believes his bill should move forward if for no other reason than to take a closer look at the decision-making process at the bureau.
“I think we need to hear that as legislators, and I think we need to fully explore the issue before us,” Tuell said.
The history of the bureau’s policy providing group passes for the disabled goes back to 1985, according Mari Wells-Eagar, a legislative liaison for the department who spoke in opposition to Tuell’s bill.
Eager told lawmakers that in the first four years of the program, the bureau only issued 29 passes. But she says attendance at the state’s parks and historic sites has exploded since then. Last year more than 830 group exemptions for the disabled were issued. But as it turns out, Eager said that’s not why the bureau changed the policy.
She said the real reason was because several members of the groups had begun to complain about the fact that the passes were only good during the week but not on weekends or holidays.
“The passholders in question would get very confrontational and would start being verbally abusive to the staff and hold up the lines so that nobody could go forward, and so then the staff felt felt very uncomfortable with that,” Eager said.
She said groups of people with disabilities will have access seven days a week.
“There are no longer restrictions on days of use; instead, holders of the group exemption pass will be admitted on a first come first, served basis along with all other users with no special privileges regarding entry,” Eager said.
The whole account of the policy changes at the bureau prompted House Chair Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop, to wonder aloud whether Tuell’s bill should be used as a vehicle to ensure future decisions are made using a more public process.
“I don’t want to see in the future sort of the same thing happen,” Hickman said.
Eager responded, saying the bureau would find that kind of rulemaking process to be time-consuming and cumbersome.
“We just feel that that would be a level of micromanagement that we don’t need,” Eager said.
Lawmakers on the panel are scheduled to take up the bill next week.