By GARRET JAROS/Lincoln Chronicle
NEWPORT – Four Bureau of Land Management employees fired suddenly and without notice at Yaquina Head last month have been offered their jobs back.
Three of the four have accepted the offer. But they have no illusions — knowing the offers could vanish like castles in the sand before they are allowed back on the job.
Three full-time rangers as well as a seasonal ranger — all in the probationary stage of their jobs — were terminated Feb. 18 as a part of a national wave of federal workforce firings ordered by the Trump administration under the auspice of trimming fat from federal agencies. The rangers were offered their jobs back March 20.
The loss of nearly half its public-facing workers quickly crippled operations at Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area, cutting programs, lighthouse tours and hours of operation at what is one of the central Oregon coast’s premier destinations visited by 400,000 people a year.
The firing of more than 24,000 federal workers across the country was met with court challenges and injunctions that called for the reinstatement of thousands of positions. But that could change any day as appeals by the Trump administration work their way through the courts.
Sabrina Gorney was one of the rangers notified by the pre-formatted letter sent to all fired federal employees that claimed “poor performance” as the reason for being dismissed without notice or severance pay. That was a determination at odds with her “excellent’ performance appraisals and one that has been challenged by other federal workers in lawsuits against the federal government.
“Privately, I expect to be fired again at some point,” said Gorney, who accepted the offer to return to work. “I don’t know when or how but I see that the administration is working on that. I think they’ve appealed three times and now they’re appealing to the Supreme Court. And I believe they can find a new legal way to fire us at some point in the future if they decide to.”
A federal judge in Maryland said Wednesday that he would extend a temporary order requiring the Trump administration to bring federal workers back who were harmed by the large-scale reduction without warning, as required by law. The government is appealing the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The ‘reduction in workforce’ is supposedly the legal way they can fire us because (federal) judges have found the previous method of laying us off was not correct,” Gorney said. “They decided it was an RIF that did not follow the regulations.”
If a future reduction in force follows procedure, Gorney believes federal workers could again be fired.
“So I think we are all kind of bracing for that,” she said. “Another thing that happened is a judge found the Office of Personnel Management does not have the authority do to what it did. But Trump just granted them the authority with an official memo. So something might happen with that.”
All of the Yaquina interpretive rangers who accepted their jobs back remain on administrative leave pending the reinstatement of their access to government computers. When Gorney asked the BLM human resources person who called to offer her job back how long that would take, she was told they have no idea.
“They had a series of questions for us, kind of a script they read us on the phone, saying ‘We are offering you your position back, you will be reinstated with back pay, the time would count towards your probationary period, so the time you haven’t worked would technically count’.” Gorney said. “And then we were asked to either verbally accept the offer or to decline. I accepted.”
Another ranger, who asked to be identified only by her first name, did not accept the offer. Since being fired, Rachel found another job in Lincoln City where she lives.
“I’m on another path now, but I’m happy that people got reinstated,” Rachel said.
Before hiring on as a permanent ranger at Yaquina in September, Rachel worked three summers as a seasonal employee with the National Park Service at Great Smoky Mountains and Yosemite national parks.
The Yaquina job had been a dream come true – and losing it was heart wrenching.
“It was very difficult,” she said. “It was traumatizing really. I made a lot of sacrifices and spent a lot of money to move out here, and commit myself to a place. That’s the main reason I moved out here was to work at Yaquina Head. It was like the ground was pulled out from underneath me. It was a difficult experience, especially since we didn’t get a lot of warning about it.”
Uncertain future
The precariousness of their future at Yaquina Head and the analogy of unstable ground was mentioned by each of the three rangers who spoke with the Lincoln Chronicle.
Will Cotton completed his first extended season as a seasonal employee last year and was ready to start back for his second year a week after he received notice that his position had been “rescinded.” The former educator said he was at a loss as to what to do next, when he was contacted by the Lincoln Chronicle after his dismissal in February. The job of interpretive ranger at Yaquina had given him the opportunity to “do exactly what I love,” he had said.
Cotton was offered his job back through a text message from Yaquina’s site supervisor, who told him he had permission to rehire two seasonals.
“It’s a good thing because I have not had any other bites or any other opportunities open,” Cotton said. “It’s one of those things though of like I wish I could trust having my feet underneath me again but it just feels like waiting for the rug to get yanked out again at any moment.
“The future’s so uncertain – just no idea of what is going to happen,” he said.
Because he is a seasonal worker, Cotton will not receive any pay for the time missed before he is allowed to return to work.
Gorney, who applied for several jobs and interviewed for one after being fired, says she will continue to apply for jobs as a “form of insurance” as she waits to find out if and when they are actually allowed to return.
“We have all not been paid anything yet,” she said of the promised back pay. “And it could be possible that the injunctions may fall apart before then. There’s no way to know.”
Volunteers step up
The BLM spokeswoman for Yaquina Head has been told not to speak to the press about the firings or re-hirings and to redirect all questions to a specified email. The Chronicle emailed to ask how many BLM workers in Oregon have been affected, whether all those fired have been rehired, when those people will be allowed back on the job, and how secure those jobs are into the future.
“We do not have a comment on personnel matters, however, BLM reaffirms its unwavering commitment to both the American public and the lands we protect,” Sarah Bennett said in an emailed response. “We are working closely with the Office of Personnel Management to ensure we are prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people.”
Bennett said the U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees the BLM, will comply with the court’s order while the White House works through the appeals process.
Martin Desmond is the president of Friends of Yaquina Lighthouse, a non-profit that operates Yaquina Head’s interpretive gift store and hires seasonal tidepool guides. Its employees have been stepping in to help at the natural area’s interpretive desk since the terminations.
If the rangers are not returned to their posts, hours at the park will continue to be limited and certain programs will be left to flounder, including the necessary training of this season’s tidepool guides.
“It’s something that never should have happened,” Desmond said of the rangers being fired. “The nincompoops in the Trump administration just have no idea what they were doing so these decent, hard-working people get fired for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Yaquina Head gets over 400,000 visitors a year, so you need to have an adequate staff there to deal with all the people that come through.”
- Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues for the Lincoln Chronicle, formerly YachatsNews, and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
It is too bad things are playing out like this. Hoping it smooths out soon. Hopefully the good work of RFK Jr. will balance out the DOGE nonsense.