More than 300 people gathered this morning near the Beaver Meadows entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park in support of federal employees who lost their jobs at the U.S. Forest Service and National Parks Service on Friday.
Parked cars stretched more than a quarter-mile along the road from the RMNP welcome sign on the north side of the street to the Highway 66 junction.
Two employees familiar with the layoffs said that 18 to 25 people lost their jobs at Rocky Mountain National Park. It is unknown how many employees in the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest were terminated.
Bundled in winter clothing amid snowy conditions, people from around the Estes Valley came with homemade signs to protest Executive Order 14210: “Workforce Optimization Initiative.”
According to a letter written by members of Colorado’s Democratic Congressional delegation, some 3,400 federal employees who work for the USFS nationally were notified Friday that their jobs had been eliminated. At the Department of Interior, which includes the NPS, 2,300 employees were fired in what has been called a Valentine’s Day massacre.
One former laid-off employee came to the protest to support others still employed.
“We were all let go for the same reason, given the same letter. To the best of my knowledge, the letters cited performance as the reason we were getting fired,” said the former employee, who asked to remain anonymous and hopes to get his job back. “For myself, my last performance review stated that I exceeded expectations.”
In the crowd this morning were local residents, along with former and current employees of the NPS and USFS. Three Estes Park Town Trustees, Kirby Hazelton, Frank Lancaster, and Bill Brown, were also in attendance.
RMNP saw 4,115,837 visitors in 2023. The town’s economy is built around the tourism industry, with travelers spending $504 Million in 2021. That generated $35 million in revenue for the town and State of Colorado.
“Without this Park this town can’t survive, businesses like ours can’t survive. So it’s really important to be able to show our support,” said Zac Bugg of Purple Points Tour Company, in Estes Park.
Makayla, who asked only to use her first name, worked locally at federal agencies for five years. She started at Rocky Mountain National Park on a seasonal basis, then moved over to the USFS where she spent nearly a year working as a forestry technician. On Thursday, she was fired.
“There’re a lot of people saying that these are cushy government jobs and that it’s not a real job,” Makayla said, referencing the physically demanding nature of her work at the Forest Service. “They say it’s not real work, but it is, you know, and this is what I went back to school for.”
One protester, who was holding a sign calling for the firing of a U.S. Park Ranger, was detained after pushing a ranger after she told him to stand back behind a white line on the road.
The protester was promptly arrested by RMNP law enforcement as people in the crowd cheered on the rangers as they took him away.
A current NPS employee who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution said the layoffs at RMNP were immediately noticeable.
“It felt like walking into a house and expecting to find a loved one, like on the floor. I’ve worked fatalities before, and it was like that. It felt like walking into that scene. People I never expected to see cry, crying on the floor,” the employee said.