Billboards Supporting Cuyahoga Valley National Park Staff Pop Up Around Cleveland Amid DOGE Cuts

Twenty-six billboards like this one, protesting the federal cuts to the National Park Service, went up around Cleveland in the past few weeks. Credit: Mark Oprea

The billboard is anything but apologetic.

“GREETINGS FROM CUYAHOGA VALLEY NATIONAL PARK,” one reads, overlooking a parking lot of PNC Bank at East 40th and Chester Avenue. “NOW WITH REDUCED STAFF, MADE POSSIBLE BY D.O.G.E.”

There’s another off I-480 and West 150th, another one at 117th and Berea, another on Lorain in Kamm’s Corner. In total, 26 billboards across the city.

Those signs, awash with cynical humor and stylized in the vein of a hip tourism design, have popped up around Cleveland since early May, and are clear in their message: Cuts to Cuyahoga Valley National Park staff are not “efficient,” as Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency have claimed.

Since January, the Elon Musk-led team at DOGE has slashed $165 billion in “needless” federal spending towards grants and programs—most of them related to climate solutions, clean energy, academic research and anything that whiffs of diversity, equity and inclusion.

In early February, DOGE began tackling the Department of Interior, which oversees the National Park Service; more than 1,000 National Park staff, from rangers to researchers, were sent packing, including at least four at CVNP.

Those cuts drove Faiz Shakir, the director of More Perfect Union, a worker’s rights nonprofit, to pivot from making videos to buying billboard spots—$2 million worth, or about 300 billboards — across the U.S. All under one message: National Parks are the great unifier, host to nature lovers across the class spectrum.

And a small drop in the bucket of the federal budget with a huge payoff.

“It’s like, what? 0.1 percent of the federal budget. But you’re cutting one-third of the actual staff of the [CVNP]?” Shakir told Scene in a call Thursday.

“If there’s a good return on investment, that’s not what I would argue,” he added. “If you’re looking to cut, it shouldn’t be, ‘Let’s cut from service rangers.’ There are way better ways to get efficiency.”

Yet, DOGE doesn’t seem to agree. On Thursday, another $26 million in cuts to grant programs, preservation offices, tribes and youth corps was announced, according to the New York Times. But nothing directly tied to CVNP.

“We are eliminating wasteful programs, cutting unnecessary costs and ensuring every dollar serves a clear purpose,” a spokesperson for the Dept of Interior wrote the Times.

“By streamlining operations and focusing resources on conservation, responsible energy development and public land protection,” she added, “we are prioritizing taxpayers while upholding our mission.”

A spokesperson for CVNP did not return a request for comment as of Thursday afternoon.

Almost every National Park across the country, from Yellowstone to Glacier, sees a spike in visitors during summer months. Also, CVNP has seen its annual visitor count climb steadily in the past decade, from 2.1 million tourists in 2013 to 2.9 million in 2023.

A spike which weighs on the minds of those that know CVNP beyond its status as a line-item in Microsoft Excel.

“Nobody’s sitting around doing nothing; everybody’s busy,” Deb Yandala, president of the Conservancy for CVNP, told Scene in February. “So any position that is cut is gonna make a difference and the impact in the public.”

Shakir said there are more billboards to come this summer.