When asked if he would be reporting his positive experience back to the president, Burgum didn’t give a direct answer but said that within the Department of the Interior, the model the Presidio uses to fundraise and function “is something we have to look at.”
When Congress created the Presidio Trust in 1996, it provided federal money to aid the property’s transition from an Army base but required it to become financially independent by 2013. That public-private partnership lessened the financial burden on the Department of the Interior, helping it garner bipartisan support.
Burgum said the National Park Service has a lot of deferred maintenance that needs to be addressed and could benefit from private sector support to do so. The park service manages 85 million acres of land across the U.S.
On the 15 or so minute walk through the Presidio, he complimented the red, movable chairs that tourists and locals sat in drinking coffee, gave the park’s landscape designers kudos for the trees and native plants lining its gravel walkways and applauded the recently debuted expansion of the Tunnel Tops picnic area.
“National parks have been called America’s best idea, and we need to invest in that,” he said as the tour wrapped up.
The current administration, however, has overseen a shrinking National Park Service as it takes a hatchet to federal agencies. Since Trump took office, the NPS has lost 24% of its permanent staff.
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