Alright boy and girls, this could probably be the single most important meeting we need to attend!!! If you only attend one meeting in your life, THIS IS THE ONE YOU NEED TO ATTEND!!!! Bring your comments and a good attitude, WE need to have our ideas and input considered. Also if you have ANYONE that uses our NF's at all, THEY NEED TO ATTEND AS WELL!! Call me if you have any questions... -- Remember this is for the ENTIRE Angeles National forest, not just the Pasedena area!!!

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this is from Mike Bishop, ACORA
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the last meeting on the forest plan in regards to the Angeles Forest is the 13th Wednesday, at 6pm in pasadena, 300 east green st. at the Pasadena conference center.

I printed out two hundred flyers on Sunday and handed them out at the gate and in the canyon.

Since it is the final planning meeting on the Angeles I'm makeing a big push for turn out. I have found that most of the mountain bikers are aligning with us, but some are green.
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:usa:

2 days and zero replies and only 14 views. I know you have replies from the other forums but that's truly very sad:(

For those of us in northern California, what can we do to help?

There was probably on the neighborhood of 150 people in attendence. I'd have to say the turnout was almost a 50/50 split between the nazi's and the responsible use groups. unfortunately our 50% was divided. There were a few hard core mountain bikers that felt they should be allowed in the wilderness areas, because they are lower impact users than 4WDs... We need to unite with these groups and everyone needs to realize were all on the same team. I heard waaaaayy too often the comment from mountain bikers (both on and off the public record) "I'll support wilderness areas if they allow bikes in them." While I'm sure a few of them are truely elitists to the core, the majority of them were open to listening to me and open to working together. I spent almost 20 minutes after the meeting talking with a MBer named Martin from a local Pasedena MB club(www.otbmbc.com). After I heard him speak about how he was infavor of trails being open just to mountain bikes, horses, and hikers - I was ready to start kicking ass and taking names. I approached him after the meeting and introduced myself and began talking to him. He admitted to being "off road vehicle ignorant" (his terminology), as well as informing me that this was his first public meeting. I told him about The L/U section on this board, as well as BRC and the other orgs fighting for our rights. He wrote down all the web sites I gave him and we continued talking...I think he is very willing to work together with the "motorized" community. Afterall, I think I enlightened him to the fact that we are all out there for the same reasons, just choosing different ways to get there...

I feel he left with a better understanding of how we (all the user groups) need to work together and not let the eco-freaks seperate us. United we stand, divided we fall. I feel that the hour drive was worth it based just on the fact that I got one person thinking about the big picture...


As for the rest of the meeting: It was a very enlightening experience from which I learned several things.

1. some people in the FS hate the extremists as much as we do.

2. There is a lot of room for improvement on the parts of both the FS and the OHV community. We (OHVers) were competely disorganized. The FS did a thourough job of confusing the majority of people there. We were given like 20 stick-on "dots" of various colors to stick on large maps to show how we felt about certain areas being proposed for different things, and wilderness areas, and the wild and scenic rivers bullshit program....the main problem was that the same color dots meant two different things on two different maps. I personally witnessed (and corrected) one OHVer voting for wilderness by using the wrong color dot for that particular map, while on another map that was the correct color for our position...

3. OHVers have a short attention span (At least at meetings). I hate stereotyping, but I've seen this at the majority of the meetings I've attended. People talking amongst them selves while others are talking.

4. OHVers need to be a lot more polite (not the best word) if we are to retain any credibility. Just about everytime one of the nazis took their turn to speak, some one would yell out over them. 9 times out of 10, they were valid objection and queries - they just were not presented in any sort of orderly fashion.

5. Recycled pencils suck when writing on anything other than a desk.

6. The comment period was basically useless. This is just my opinion, maybe someone else that was there has a different opinion. All everyone did was talk about why someone closed this and why this is endangered and why are there no laws that prevent endangered species from eating other endangerd spieces and dirty diapers and ellow frogs, and weeds in horse shit - and a whole bunch of other useless information. Hopefully every OHVers there turned in written comments, because you can bet your ass every greenie did.

7. The recreation community needs to unite and work with each other towards a common goal. We do not need any infighting and we will definately not have a chance unless we resolve this immediately....

The Resource Management Plan (RMP) s going to determine how our National Forests are managed for the next 15 years. We need to have a say in it now. It's not too late, but if we wait much longer, we might as well just send money to the sierra club...

I want to say thanks to Mike and Ken for going out there with me, and to Mike Bishop (ACORA) for reminding me of the meeting, and to all the other OHVers and recreationists that let the FS know we're here and we're gonna get involved, and we're gonna have a say in this.


:usa:

Thanks for the update! You're right about the users group being devided. All users (4x4's, bikers, horse riders) need to present a multiple-use, united position.

This is why we, as 4x4 users, need to go out of our way to talk with and educate other users when we meet them along the trail. Take a moment, shut your rig off, offer them a drink and just talk with them. We are all in this fight together.