Some Georgia park rangers may soon be without a badge and a gun, unable to collar poachers or write tickets to drunks and litterbugs under a law enforcement reorganization proposed by the state Department of Natural Resources.
Visitors, DNR officials said, would see no reduction in its 200 full-time law enforcement officers, spread over more than 155 properties. However, about 80 other employees who now help patrol and enforce laws would no longer have enforcement powers.
Opponents of the plan worry the unintended consequences could include more people parking without buying a pass, soaring alcohol use (and the subsequent fights and loud music) and more illegal deer kills.
DNR officials counter the changes will make law enforcement work more efficiently within its ranks.
The agency, however, will phase out part-time policing work done by on-site staff, including state park managers who often are the most familiar faces to regular visitors. Many of these employees, known as deputy conservation rangers, juggle several duties.
Opponents are worried the plan could stretch the full-time officers thin and decrease law enforcement visibility within the state park system. That concern also may touch a nerve with visitors.
Julio Andrade, walking in the woods Monday afternoon with his 2-year-old daughter, said he frequently enjoyed Sweetwater Creek State Park in large part because he considered it to be peaceful and safe. The 2,400-acre park, located in Lithia Springs just west of Atlanta, boasts prime picnic sites, a huge lake and hiking trails that lead to the towering ruins of a textile mill burned during the Civil War.
Andrade has never had a problem but quickly nodded his head when asked if the changes worried him. “Nowadays, you never know what kind of people you might run into here,” he said.
The DNR’s plan would streamline five separate enforcement units within the agency into one division.
The consolidation will be phased in over the next five years, through 2018. DNR’s governing board is expected to vote this month on new rules related to the changes, although DNR Commissioner Mark Williams said it is largely an internal management change.
“The officers need one chain of command to reduce duplication of services and to improve deployment of personnel and patrol(s),” Williams wrote in a letter recently to state legislators. “Under our current structure, we have employees in several different sections that engage in part-time law enforcement.”
Several of the state’s high-profile law enforcement organizations, including the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, support the changes and say it will help streamline their work with DNR and promote better training and effectiveness.
It also follows a trend among other states, especially those involved with the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies organization. Eight of the 15 states involved with the group already have a similar structure to the one being implemented by Georgia.
Williams said the changes will allow DNR employees to better focus on their core jobs: “Fisheries biologists can focus on fisheries, wildlife technicians can focus on resource management, park managers can focus on park operations,” and so on.
But the plan is opposed or at least questioned by several conservation groups, retired DNR managers and park volunteers. They believe DNR has not done enough to publicize the changes among hunters, anglers and others who pay $20.5 million annually in license fees to use park land and wildlife areas.
DNR officials said the plan should be cost neutral, but opponents wonder if that will remain true. “My prediction is that the new law enforcement division will be submitting numerous budget requests in the future for more funding and more staffing,” said Larry McSwain, who was deputy director of DNR’s Wildlife Resources Division before he retired.
Overall, DNR reported 14,670 violations — 13,830 from the Wildlife Resources Division and 840 from the Parks Division — in 2012. While opponents of the plan worry about an increase, supporters, including Carlton Stallings, president of the Georgia state Fraternal Order of Police, said the presence of on-site park managers and other employees would still deter crime because criminals would see them at work.
The 200 full-time law enforcement officers serve an agency that includes 65 state parks and historic sites as well as 90 state-operated wildlife management areas.
Both supporters and opponents turned out in almost even numbers Tuesday to speak about the changes at a public hearing in Atlanta. DNR is accepting comments by phone, email and mail until 4:30 p.m. June 18. For contact information, log on to www.gadnr.org.
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