Yosemite's Course It's a rocky road between sometimes contradictory goals. The Fresno Bee - November 17, 1999 Yosemite National Park's new superintendent has some reassuring things to say about the direction he intends for the nation's premier park. David Mihalic offers a clear view of his task: doing what's best for the park. That does not, as some critics have charged in the past, mean a desire on the part of the Park Service to close the gates of Yosemite as a solution to traffic problems. "The easy way out is to drop the gate," he told The Bee's editorial board on Monday. "If we do that, we have failed our mission." That mission isn't easy. The Park Service is charged with two sometimes contradictory duties. One is to preserve the resources and beauty of America's most special places for generations to come. The other is to accommodate as many appropriate public uses as possible today. The strain sometimes shows. Mihalic offers the clear observation that the economic vitality of the so-called "gateway communities" can't be the sole engine driving park policies. At the same time, he expresses a willingness and a desire to work with people in those communities. As an example, he pledged to work to develop the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System, a new bus system designed to take some of the pressure of automobiles off Yosemite. The Park Service has joined Merced, Mariposa and Mono counties in starting the system, which will bring visitors to the park from outlying areas. Madera and Tuolumne counties, originally partners in YARTS, dropped out this year in fear of the economic impact - undetermined until the experiment is actually tried - on businesses in their mountain communities. That's ironic, in one way: Adjacent communities have complained for years that the Park Service - the 800-pound gorilla of the Sierra Nevada - paid little heed to their needs. Then, when the Park Service agreed to participate in YARTS - a first, in many ways - two of the counties bolted from the table. That's just one example of the tangled web of interests that surround Yosemite. Mihalic hasn't been handed the world's easiest job. He has a host of chores just ahead of him, principally the job of completing plans for the management of the Merced River and Yosemite Valley as a whole. He also must support and nurture a work force in the park that he described as "wounded" in the wake of a season of pain and turmoil: four murders connected to the park, a parachutist's death and nature's toll of disasters. To do all that, Mihalic will need support and perhaps some measure of good luck. But since his success is tied to the health and preservation of Yosemite, we should all be rooting for him to do well.