I told her that a major concern was a lack of clear understanding of their plans. Her ambitions did not sound particularly grandiose as she told them. The Park Authority wants a building that will hold up to 75 people for a classroom, a few offices and a 50 car parking lot. They will remove the existing parking space, which the director said could hold almost that many vehicles now. The theme is not to expand volume but to improve quality. The director said her dream was to create a model program that others would learn from. The new facility has a budget of $300,000 and $30,000 or more has already been spend on environmental efforts. She expects it will be at least two years before any ground could be broken. She also indicated that she believes the parking lot would be very expensive as she thinks code now requires it to be paved. This would not leave much money for a substantial building.

The capacity of the park is 300 visitors per day, but practically, they can't do more than about 225. You will never guess what determines the limit..............the ZIP wire! I told her that anything she could put in an email describing their limit and intention to limit in the future would help to put the community to rest. She promised to forward an email with this information. She reported the worst day last year to be four or five buses.

As far as the road is concerned, they share our concern about speeding. She said that she has been very stern with her staff in this regard and would like our immediate feedback on any future violations. She liked the idea of a bike path along the road, but agreed that this might not be practical. Regarding buses, she had difficulty seeing how they could prevent school buses from bringing children to the park. I told her the most obnoxious vehicle was the oversized tour buses that seem to come from everywhere. She was open to considering having people shuttle from the parking lot at the marina, but could not commit to that yet.

The formal budget and plan will be shared with the Task Force in a few weeks when it is complete. They have eight full-time employees and an operating budget of about $1 million. They were running significant losses when she joined the operation in 1997. In 2000 they had a $45,000 surplus on 18,000 visitors. She said that in 1997 or 1998 they had over 30,000 visitors. They have significantly increased their pricing to clients. The director also promised to provide a summary of their activity for 2000 as soon as they have it compiled.

My impression is that the current thrust is to move upscale in quality, but not in quantity. If we work through a plan of how many visitors for how many possible days, arriving and leaving in an acceptable manner, we can come up with an agreement for the community. I hope it is this simple.

Above all, we must be mindful that Hemlock is only part of our concern. We need to attack the rest of the Yates Ford issues through various other means. I came away from this discussion thinking that we are dealing with a wonderful parcel of land that is a treasure to have in our back yard. There are many worse things that the Park Authority could be doing with it. I think that we should be focused on keeping communication open and honest with GMU and the Park Authority as this unfolds. I have a suspicion that we can work this out. I hope that the director will be there long term. She strikes me as fair and level headed, a good person.