Parks Agency Leaving City

Parks agency leaving city

About 45 employees of the federal Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service will probably leave Ann Arbor - victims of the Reagan administration’s belt-tightening.

Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt has ordered HCRS dissolved. And although “no specifics have been announced, I assume this office will be closed,” said Frank D. Jones, head of Ann Arbor’s HCRS office, located in the federal building on Liberty Street.

The service, created in 1978, administers grants to acquire parks, both urban and rural, and to preserve historic sites.

WATT’S ORDER to eliminate HCRS should not be interpreted as anti-park or anti-environmental, Jones said, because the service’s main functions will simply be transferred to the National Park Service.

There’s is already some duplication now of services and programs provided by HCRS and the park service, Jones added.

Moreover, no Ann Arbor HCRS employees are expected to be laid off, he said. They will apparently be absorbed by the park service, probably at the service’s office in Omaha, Neb., said Jones.

A report outlining the specifics of the HCRS’s reorganization is due within 90 days, Jones said. The bureaucratic changes are within Watt’s power and do not need approval from Congress, said Jones.