Wilderness Society Official Critical of Park Service Quits

A high-level Wilderness Society official in California who led a campaign criticizing the concession management at Yosemite National Park resigned Tuesday, charging that the environmental group stripped her of some job duties under pressure from the National Park Service.

Patricia Schifferle, formerly the Wilderness Society’s regional director for California and Nevada, was removed from her post and told that she could no longer pursue efforts to reduce development in Yosemite Valley.

Yosemite National Park Supt. Michael Finley had complained about Schifferle to Wilderness Society officials in Washington and joined executives of the park’s concessionaire in criticizing her in the news media. Wilderness Society officials said outside complaints did not trigger the reassignment.

Schifferle has headed a highly publicized campaign to push the Park Service and its concessionaire to reduce development in heavily congested Yosemite Valley. In the course of her efforts, she has frequently rankled park officials and executives of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., the MCA Inc. subsidiary that runs the concession under a park contract and owns many of the buildings in the valley.

“They (the Wilderness Society) believe they can get more environmental protection through accommodation,” Schifferle said. “I believe, in this particular instance, we will get more protection for the park by being the critics, and I think that is going to take aggressive action.”

Ron Tipton, the Wilderness Society’s director of field operations, said Schifferle was shifted from regional director to senior counsel without loss of pay primarily because a back injury has prevented her from traveling as much as the job requires.

“Patty has her own style, and she was very effective--a very effective advocate for the Wilderness Society,” Tipton said. “She was the most effective advocate we have had in California.”

Finley, in an interview earlier this summer, said the Wilderness Society under Schifferle blew small matters out of proportion. He complained that she would ask him to investigate potential problems in the park and immediately fax her letters to him to the news media.

Schifferle, 39, who formerly served as principal consultant to the state Assembly Transportation Committee, has accused Finley of being a “puppet of the Curry Co.” She has helped organize an effort to establish a nonprofit group to bid against MCA for the concession contract when it comes up for renewal in 1992.

The Park Service will decide who gets the contract. Tipton said the Wilderness Society will continue to pursue the contract without Schifferle.

Schifferle, who ran the Wilderness Society’s California office for four years, will now serve as director of special projects for Clean Water Action, an environmental group. But she said that she will continue to be involved with Yosemite issues.