The local tourism industry received good news Thursday when Commerce Cabinet Secretary Marcheta Sparrow announced the state would extend their management of several attractions in the Tri-Cities for at least 90 more days.

A recent announcement from Sparrow and Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan Miller stated that the Department of Parks could no longer afford to operate the leased or take part on the operations of Portal 31 as a state park facility due to severe budget restraints that affect the operations of the entire parks system.

Sparrow said she decided to grant a 90-day extension based on the feelings expressed from those in attendance.

“What I heard here this evening led to the extension,” she said. “I heard the public’s desire to keep this alive and how important it is to them. We appreciate how they feel and we will work with them any way we can.”

Brandon Smith, state Senator for the 30th district, said he was pleased with the outcome of the meeting.

“We were able to come up with a plan that everybody agreed upon. That’s the way it is supposed to be. We aren’t always going to get good news. But today we handled it with a lot of class and character and made our point and they saw the validity in our argument and we kept this project alive,” he said. “My only goal today was to keep this part of the state parks system, and keep moving toward our overall goal of having the state take it over and incorporate it.”

Smith added he was pleased to give Portal 31 a chance to open.

“It’s exciting because they saw something that we already knew. That is, you need to at least get the thing up and going. If we would have pulled the plug on it two or three weeks before it opens we would never have known,” he said. “It’s exciting that we are going to get it open, get everybody trained and get everything ready to go and see what it’s going to do. Then we will come back and revisit it in 90 days.”

Harlan County Judge-Executive Joe Grieshop said he was also pleased with the result of the meeting.

“The meeting had a positive outcome because we have an opportunity in the next 90 days to work through the issues and keep the Benham Inn and Kentucky Coal Mining Museum open and to lay down plans to open the Portal 31,” Grieshop said. “This is a real opportunity for Harlan County to step up and do its part, and for the state to do their part to make the tourism opportunity in Harlan County become a realistic situation.”

Sparrow said the original idea to no longer operate Portal 31 as a state park facility was based solely on budget restraints.

“The decision was based strictly on the budget, it was not at all for any other reason,” she said. “We all have to sit down and see where we are. We are at the point where we have to look at all of the facilities.”

Sparrow added that she would like to see the Portal 31 exhibition mines succeed.

“We want every part of the state to do well,” she said. “We understand the deep emotional ties here.”

Smith said not allowing Portal 31 to open would have been devastating.

“If you take a project from Lexington, they have 26 other parks they can go to. But if you take one of ours, it’s the only one we have and it is devastating,” Smith said. “I think they realized to take something from an area that has been neglected for so long is unacceptable. They saw the impact it was going to have and granted us this 90-day window to show them that we can make it go.”

He added that a more informed decision regarding Portal 31 could be made after the 90-day extension period.