Another aspect that doesn't add up is the relationship between keeping the Hurricane Ridge Road open and deferred maintenance in the Park.

Reed Robinson, the former chief of maintenance stated at a 2009 Port Angeles City Council meeting that even if ONP got a greater appropriation from Congress, the first priority for that money would be reducing deferred maintenance, not plowing the Hurricane Ridge road.

However, in recent conversations Park officials have insisted that during the 50% of the days that no new plowing is needed on the Ridge road, the road crew is kept busy with other projects within the Park.

It seems as if the four additional crew hired for the two year experiment therefore would have been able to knock out quite a few items on the maintenance punch list.  At any rate it seems that having those additional staff should be a net benefit to the overall maintenance of the park, not something to be fought tooth and nail by park administration.