Yosemite park leaders’ cold-hearted treatment of longtime residents is indefensible

Toni Covington died right where she wanted: Yosemite Valley.

But the 60-year-old’s life ended too soon, and it seems plausible that the stress of a forced relocation out of her home near Yosemite National Park played a role in her demise.

Covington was found dead in her dorm quarters last Thursday by park rangers and emergency medical providers after she did not show up for work. Her death came mere days after she was forced to leave her longtime home in El Portal Trailer Park.

As told by Bee staff writer Carmen Kohlruss, the park first alerted El Portal residents — estimates range from a dozen to about 20 — in late December that they would need to either move their mobile homes or leave them, as the trailer park was to be shut down.

Yosemite leaders said the electrical system serving the small trailer park was decrepit and a fire danger. They have plans to convert the trailer park into a camping area once the electrical system gets rebuilt.

But the park provided no compensation for the mobile home owners, many of whom had lived at El Portal for decades. Covington was such a resident; she called El Portal home for more than 30 years. She worked at Yosemite for 41.

Her son offered to have her move in with him in South Dakota. But she declined. “I’m going to die here before I give it up,” Adam Covington recalled his mother telling him a week ago.

Yosemite leader absent

Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon did not conduct a community meeting with the El Portal residents in the months leading up to the trailer park’s closure. In January The Bee Editorial Board criticized her for a lack of involvement. The stance takes on new relevance in light of Covington’s death. Might she have lived longer if she had been able to share her concerns with Muldoon? Only God knows.

The land where El Portal was is owned by the U.S. Park Service, and is located just outside the western boundary to Yosemite along Highway 140 and the Merced River. Under state law, mobile home tenants have up to a year to relocate. But the El Portal land is federal property, and therefore under U.S. regulations, not state of California requirements.

For Covington, moving out of El Portal into the dorm housing meant having to climb several flights of stairs to her small room, a challenge for her. It also meant her one-minute commute up the highway to her job at El Portal Market turned into a half-hour drive. She also had to give up many of her belongings and her two cats.

But mostly, her travail was knowing she could not longer live where she had been for decades.

National park’s future

Covington’s death cannot be blamed solely on Yosemite officials. She had some other health problems, her son said. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that being forced out of her home exacerbated her problems a lot,” he told Kohlruss.

When Kohlruss interviewed Adam Covington last Saturday, he had yet to hear from any Yosemite officials.

That’s unfortunate. They should have reached out personally to offer sympathies, instead of letting a representative recite a statement. But poor communication has been a theme in how park officials handled the El Portal closure.

Yosemite is a natural wonder known worldwide. The interest in it is intense. The public cares deeply about it, and wants its say in how it is managed. One hopes that the El Portal episode does not foreshadow more communication problems. Muldoon and her staff must put transparency first and foremost as they oversee the Yosemite of tomorrow — sadly, one without El Portal Trailer Park residents.

This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.