OGDEN -- Funding cuts will close down the U.S. Forest Service information office at Union Station sometime this spring, but efforts are under way to convert it into a wider-based information station to represent all of Weber County.
Ogden District Ranger Robbin Redman said the funding cut is part of the continuing effort by the federal government to reduce spending. The information office, which provides maps, park passes and other services to the public, has been at Union Station for 15 years.
"We're not the best at what could be provided down there, and like everybody, we're shrinking funding," she said.
The Ogden Ranger District normally gets $50,000 a year to run the office, she said, including both rent and staffing, "but every year you have to ask for it," and this year it wasn't there.
Redman has been district ranger for just over a year and said she sees a need for a wider-based information office to serve visitors to the area.
Ogden doesn't have a central visitors center, she said, so the Forest Service's information office is usually the one people head to, especially if they visit the Union Station museums and then ask "OK, now what?"
"The noise I was hearing, and just the situation in this community, I think we're ready for something else down there," she said.
She said she's begun a series of preliminary meetings with the Ogden/Weber Chamber, the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Union Station Foundation.
The first meeting with all the principals was held Wednesday to explore the problems and start looking for possible solutions. Union Station Foundation Director Roberta Beverly said the meeting was positive, with everyone agreeing to work toward the goal. Similar information centers in other cities will be studied, she said, and another meeting is scheduled for Jan. 25.
Dave Hardman, president and CEO of the Ogden/Weber Chamber, said the biggest problem will be making the operation self-supporting. Even if the Forest Service can find enough money to pay the rent, he said, there's still the question of staffing and other costs.
"Our focus is on helping the Forest Service make it self-funded," he said. "There's something that would create a cash flow so they could manage it. Their resources have shrunk and their ability to pay for the personnel, so our focus is on helping them.
"Obviously, we're a not-for-profit organization, so we can't, and the convention and visitors bureau is in the same situation, so what we want to do is look for ways we can have that facility really represent our community, and specifically the resources we have in the Forest Service."
One possibility is to sell souvenir items for the Ogden area, which was also a possibility that Redman mentioned.
"Thousands of people walk through the doors and they ask 'Where can I get some Ogden stuff?' " she said.
Union Station Foundation Director Roberta Beverly said she's hopeful for something, if only because the Union Station Foundation needs the rent money to help pay to run Union Station. While Ogden owns Union Station and provides some capital improvement money each year, the foundation is responsible for keeping the place fiscally afloat.
Beverly said she'd like to see a wide-based information office, one possibly even including state agencies. "I'm hoping that we'll be able to pull together some kind of partnership that will allow this to become truly an information service, not just for the Forest Service, but national parks and the state and for what goes on in Ogden City."
Beverly said she'd even like to see it evolve into a sort of "one stop shopping" space for people buying federal parks passes and state fishing and hunting licenses. Staff from those agencies could even be on hand for program outreach, she said.
Redman said she could envision the Forest Service using a broadened information center for more than map sales and selling park passes.
The Forest Service has a regional office in Ogden as well as her district office. Both are staffed with experts on the many uses of public lands, from biologists and wildlife management to fire and recreation. A broadened information office could put on informational meetings for the public, she said, sort of like ranger talks that national parks offer visitors.
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