For everyone that can attand there is an OHV meeting at the Rescue Community Center tomorrow night 02/20/02 from 7:00 to 9:00pm. This is the single most important meeting to attend regarding the American River access and other areas. Please attend if at all possible and make an effort to keep our trails open. Its mandatory for all Pirate Club Members or we Hobble them at the kneecaps.................

Please pass along to all.

Thanks, Tarzan, AKA (UGET IT)

In Case you were wondering Tarzan is now my official club name bar any other personal incidents.......LOL

Hey Tarzan, is Jane going too? Tell her "I" said she needs to go! :flipoff2:

I'll tell her tonight!

Who is hosting this meeting, i was at a number of the BLM meetings for the area and i am on their maillist but have received nothing from them.

I also have not recieved a notice in the mail and the meeting is not listed on the BLM website.

Who is hosting this meeting, i was at a number of the BLM meetings for the area and i am on their maillist but have received nothing from them.
This is a Pinehille Preserve meeting, sponsored by all the agencies, including the BLM. Different mailing list, I guess... Theoretically we have already had our comment through the BLM American River Planning Process, and this is more targeted toward general information disbursement to the community.

That said, I'll be there, and we should have at least a few others, as well. This is an ENTIRELY different meeting and comment process than we used at the bLM planning process -- this will be a more traditional community comment meeting.

At each meeting (two, March 20th and April 23rd), experts from the member agencies will give presentations on a wide range of topics (History of the Preserve, Descriptions of the rare plants and their natural community, Management Issues/Status of the Management Plan) March 20th will have additional focus on public access and use, April 20th will have additional focus on fire and fuel management.

The meeting is scheduled 7-9 and will be held at the Rescue Community Center, at 4060 Green Valley Road. See you there!

Randii

Why aren't meetings like this posted in the Land Use section too?
:confused:

I will try to make it, but I just found out about it today.

Crowdog

Why aren't meetings like this posted in the Land Use section too?
Sorry, I had very little notice of this, myself.

I promise to make this meeting.
Rich

Well, the meeting was :rainbow:. Seems like everything that was discussed in the bazillion previous meetings was completley forgotten. Back to square one. :rolleyes:

Is there actually a process or ?

I am sittin in a hotel, how did it go??

Lot of people? Going to be more meetings? I know one next week but I thought it was a different topic?

There looked to be about 20 or so from the OHV community. POR & RCRC seemed to be well represented.

I don't think there is much of a process going on. :(

Crowdog

oh come on you teasers what happened?? 20 isn't too impressive, there are more than 20 people in RCRC/POR alone..

(I know we weren't all there but still)

thanks ;)

I didn't make it. had to goto the Dr.

got a fawking sinus infection :(

hope it went well.

is there any plans for an organized cleanup? it sure could use it.

BLM did say they would cover dump fees.

It went as well as could be expected, IMHO... this is the standard public comment process (different than the community planning process we recently completed), where they give us an overview and obtain general comments from us, then go behind closed doors to make a draft plan that we can comment on later.

We did all the heavy lifting in the earlier plannin process. Now our job is to be sure that we follow through and show that we continue to support the same thing...

We can finally mail letters, now, as well.

More later -- I gotta go finish laying out flex pipe in my foundation...

Randio

If I understand right the last meeting will be on the 23rd of April for public comments. Like Randy was saying this is a different process here since all 9 agencies where represented there.The only thing I could do is support the community based planning that was done with the BLM earlier in the year.

OK. 4 hours of pipe, 3 hours of concrete... shower, shit, and shave... gotta work, but I'll be setting up some click-to-send form letters that we can mail. The old planning process required folks to show up IN PERSON to get a say -- now we can mail, email, and call... and that's where I imagine this and other boards can really flex their muscle.

Folks to contact, and show REAL SUPPORT for:
* Dean Swickart - Folsom BLM Field Manager -- encourage him to sign the plan created from the community planning recommendations.
* Jim Eicher - manager of the old community planning process -- encourage him to include the recommendations of the community as voted in the previous process
* Al Franklin - Pine Hill Reserve Manager & BLM Botanist -- encourage him to strongly push for the goals of the BLM management plan (again, this comes from the previous community planning process where we made clear progress)

Folks to contact and lobby hard for our goals:
* Bankie Philps ? - State Fish and Game manager for the land at the confluence -- encourage him to get on with transitioning the state land to the BLM so that it can be managed under the upcoming BLM management plan
* Your congress-critter, to lobby AGAINST any funding for American River Conservancy projects. They are hitting us on the one road where we can still access the South Fork, so let's hammer ALL their funding (they don't actually HAVE money themselves, they apply for grants to use OUR money against us!) until they cave on this one road.

Folsk to contact when you're pissed:
* Alan Ergott - American River Conservancy -- ask why the hell public grants are being used to keep the public off their land -- did you HEAR him state that some parts of this reserve need to be managed WITH NO HUMAN PRESENCE? :mad: :rolleyes: :mad:

More soon. I'm not about to be done with this fight....

Randii

Here's a what I spoke:
The BLM provides 75% of the land, so the BLM community-plan should be given heavier weight. In that plan, all of the Miner's Cabin access is closed, and all of the side trails off Old Mine Road/Boulder Mine (off Jergen's Road) are also closed -- the priority is to retain motorized access on the one main road. Roaded access is limited to 2.5 miles of BLM-designated 12-foot wide road... well under a tenth of a percent of the 3000 acres to be managed. The community has worked together with the BLM and made the hard compromises along the South Fork of the American River -- that plan should be prioiritized heavily during the Pine Hill Preserve planning process.

Mechanized access has already done cleanups of the area, and seveal field trips with the BLM, and has volunteer civil engineers that are putting together a road repair/maintenance plan specifically focused on mitigating erosion. 4-wheelers receive the brunt of the blame for dumping activities in that area, but the dumping consistently occurs on the 2WD-accessable section of road, and not down in the 4x4-accessable portions -- and 4-wheelers are the only group of which I'm aware that actively organize cleanups of the area, and have actively pursued the BLM to enter into an Adopt-a-Trail program with them.

If you haven't already seen the pot-shot hit-pieces from the folks against mechanized access, I'm sure you will. Non-government groups like the American River Conservancy and some of the Kanaka Valley homeowners association have photos of the worst erosion damage, taken out of context, with no effort to show the majority of the road, which is stable, and minimally eroded, as evidenced by its history of wheeled access dating back to the 1800s.

I, and other mechanized access advocates wants a balanced plan for the American River Soth Fork corridor ... we've already made great steps in that direction with the community-driven compromises already built into the BLM plan. As the Pine Hill Management process enters its closed-doors stages, it would be a travesty to heavily weight the opinions of a small group of homeowners or a small ultra-conservative coalition and discard the community-generated compromises already in the draft BLM management plan. This is PUBLIC land, and it simply must be managed for multiple PUBLIC uses -- clearly, plant preservation is high among those uses, but those plants exist in a context of community, and that community includes a large volume ofactive and vocal mechanized users.

This is the last mechanized access available in the Sout Fork corridor - it is endangered as much as the plants it permits access to. Let's manage this road IN CONJUNCTION with the plants.

I musta done OK -- 4 people stood up and left after I was done speaking! :D

Mike Overmeier and Brian Guttierez stood up and represented the Pirates of the Rubicon Club and River City Rock Crawlers Club. Great job, guys! Last, a lady named Thelma Oates stood up and talked about a different management unit, still in the Preserve, but not related to the trail.

As noted above, not much gets done in these public comment meetings except public comment. Nobody really writes anything down, they just listen... let's face it, the stakeholders for the Preserve already have their minds made up, the question relates more to what is in the yet-to-be-released BLM recommendations, and how big of a say the BLM gets in the Preserve planning process....

...but it sure was fun getting a few licks in against the folks who are trying to close the public off its land. :flipoff2:

Randii

I spoke to Al Franklin after the meeting. I asked to be present at the closed door decision making meeting. I stressed my interest in the process. I also STRESSED the fact that I wanted to make sure our concerns were being considered.