- Location
- Price, Utah
Thanks for the input Kurt. I agree with pretty much everything you said on how to make it better. As far as the rif that was mentioned, I was not part of USA-All at the time, so I do not have anything to add to that.
On a side note I have to comment about Mike Swensons commentary at the seminar. He mentioned the 'rif' between himself (Usa-All) and the 4wd community based on his 'advice' that the public comment period is not the 'silver bullet' for fighting this stuff. Unless I'm totally off mark on this particular rif, it had nothing to do with us thinking we had a silver bullet rather that Usa-All wasn't even going to take aim at a target Ie zero response to giant RMP's. The 4wd community did not start our approach at the comment period, we were there at the initial scoping 5-6 year earlier, in full force at the alternative scoping meetings and yeah I feel our users rocked the public comment period. Read the RMP decisions and when you see things like 'based on extensive public comment' as a reasoning factor for maintaining access, I call it a win. Granted these RMP's are all being contested by SUWA, but we fared out very well in the 6 RMP. Again, I might be off mark on this particular rif but that's the only one I'm intimate with.
Sounds like it was a good beginning, despite some of Swenson's misleading comments. Fair job USA-ALL.
One thing I would have liked to see is some formal recognition of who was there and what groups they represented (i.e. raise of hands how many are here from U4WDA?). Including a quick opportunity for a representative of each group to introduce themselves with a little description of what they are doing to fight the fight.
But most of all! I would LOVE to see some follow up and leadership from USA-ALL on the "action item" detailed by Mark Ward.
Now, I would imagine that many of us individually and/or with our clubs can probably take time out of a trip that's already on our schedule to take on a specific assignment. Check out a few roads from the county maps, take some pictures, and turn it in to U4 or USA-ALL. But without a leader, or a central repository for the information, it will be a feeble and disorganized effort.
I am not 100% on that, but I want to say U4 tried something like that when Steve Jackson was president? I could very well be mistaken. At any rate it's a good idea that we talked about with Mark Ward a few months ago, and was somewhat sidetracked by uncertainty...
Definitely something I would personally like to get going on. I think there may be a chance with all these different groups more or less heading in the same direction finally.
If the action item you are talking about is getting an inventory of the routes, we did put together a tool to submit data to one central location with the help of Herzog during the St. George comment period last year. It worked ok, but does need some refinement.
http://www.rme4x4.com/showpost.php?p=699891&postcount=1
I know it can be done, it is just going to take a huge amount of volunteer effort on the inside to do the work.
Wish in one hand.... No, no. That would be great if there are enough people that WOULD volunteer to run the roads and document this stuff.
Wish in one hand.... No, no. That would be great if there are enough people that WOULD volunteer to run the roads and document this stuff.
Where were you when we were trying to do this 6 years ago? Wishing in one of your other hands? Wish we would've had some support then, before it was "hip" to be into land use.
This idea is one of the most important things that has never happened. Collection and dissemination of spatial route data. It was always frustrating that this hadn't been attempted sometime in the previous 30 years of the fight (one of the reasons I'm very unimpressed with some of the past efforts). The data collected re SRS was a great start! We need more such projects.
Not so good to see the same excellent ideas coming up every five years (not just this one). Probably won't be necessary the next time this is discussed in five years, closures will be old news by then.
Eric R correctly identified the importance of this issue the FIRST day I ever introduced him to land use. He asked, "Where's your inventory?" Uh, still don't have one. Whoops!
Fantastic idea that I'd support financially.
Where were you when we were trying to do this 6 years ago? Wishing in one of your other hands? Wish we would've had some support then, before it was "hip" to be into land use.
This idea is one of the most important things that has never happened. Collection and dissemination of spatial route data. It was always frustrating that this hadn't been attempted sometime in the previous 30 years of the fight (one of the reasons I'm very unimpressed with some of the past efforts). The data collected re SRS was a great start! We need more such projects.
Not so good to see the same excellent ideas coming up every five years (not just this one). Probably won't be necessary the next time this is discussed in five years, closures will be old news by then.
Eric R correctly identified the importance of this issue the FIRST day I ever introduced him to land use. He asked, "Where's your inventory?" Uh, still don't have one. Whoops!
Fantastic idea that I'd support financially.