- Location
- Sandy, Ut
JeeperG said:
Dean Richardson (Blue Ribbon Rep.) is one of the coolest gentleman you will ever meet. Over my experience with the U4WDA, I have had the opportunity spen some time at event with Dean, not a better egg out there!
Things we say here are being used against us.
- Thread starter Rick B
- Start date
Dean Richardson (Blue Ribbon Rep.) is one of the coolest gentleman you will ever meet. Over my experience with the U4WDA, I have had the opportunity spen some time at event with Dean, not a better egg out there!
Poomba
Registered User
- Location
- Dugway, Utah
EZRhino said:
Ok, this kind of turned in to a novel, but I had a lot to say.
It would appear that this particular story is not included in the online version of the paper. So I'll quote the relevant parts, I'm not going to retype an entire half page article though.
"... The half-section the off-road group bought abuts the controversial parcel purchased in 2003 by John Rzeczycki and Kiley Miller, who challenged jeepers trying to drive Lower Helldorado Canyon during April's Jeep Safari, and lost, ...
While Rzeczycki wants to hear the off-road group's plans, Miller says she's worried. "Jeremy's not going to be able to control all those ORVers; those people are very pissed off at me. Their chat rooms have nothing but malicious intent towards me, like 'Let's create as much noise and dust as possible,' or 'Let's create a trail along the property line and call it the B___h trail',and they have my picture with a line through it."
A survey of 4x4 internet chat rooms did turn up refrences to Miller and the photo she mentions, as well as a groundswell of support for privately-owned ORV facilities, which thrive in other parts of the country. While embarrassed about the photo, Parriott says he's excited at the support for the park..."
There are also concerns from the owners of the other 1/4 section, who plan to sub divide & sell off home sites, and another landowner in the area listed in the article. So now we have a significant portion of the neighbors who may be against the idea of an off-road park. If they get upset enough to complain to San Juan County or to file a lawsuit will the group who bought the property still want to try to use it as an off-road park? At some point it will cost them more than it is worth to them. The BLM is also quoted as having some concerns about the activities on the private property spill over onto the public lands & cause unacceptable damage there. In my opinion that is a very legitimate concern, anyone who knew Moab as little as 10 years ago understands exactly the concern being voiced by the BLM here.
Other comments I read in this thread need to be addressed I think. First off the Times Independent is a weekly local paper, so expecting them to have Pulitzer Prize winning writers is completely unrealistic. However they do have some pretty good writers for a small town paper. I believe that they generally do a good job of trying to be balanced in the reporting of their stories. This story really is pretty balanced in my opinion. But it did have just enough of Ms. Miller's side that was basically true to get my attention, and no part of the story that concerned Ms. Miller was untrue. Generally people don't like hearing about someone being mis-treated by others, it tends to make them empathise with the person. That is what I'm getting at here, by saying negative things about her we make others feel sorry for her & more likely to decide that they are in agreement with her. Now the newspaper accurately points out that the 4x4 forums are trashing Ms. Miller & many of the people who had no opinion before are starting to form an opinion in her favor. Ultimately the general public will be the driving force to make a final determination about our use of public lands, so pissing them off is not a good move for us.
Someone said something to the effect of just because someone made a threat in writing on the internet doesn't mean it's serious. You're dead wrong about that. Police agencies will take any threat in writing completely seriously and the courts will back them up 100%. Making threats to harm or harass someone is a crime, saying "aw I didn't really mean it" won't keep you from being prosecuted. Again, the general public judges all of us by the things we tolerate being said by a few of us. This is the kind of thing that turns the majority of people against us.
There will always be those who let their emotions rule & say or write things that can be seen by others in a negative way. The better job we do of controlling that & reducing it, the better we appear in the public's view. So it's in our best interest as a group to control such things being written on the forums we use to prevent them from being used to turn the general public against us. Let our opponents say controversial things & have those statements used against them.
Right now the majority of people in the Moab area are neutral on off-road use of the lands around here. But this situation has brought it to their attention in a way that has many starting to think that restrictions or elimination of this type of use might be a good thing. Throw in all the problems created by EJS (I know that the majority of problems aren't really caused by the participants, but the general public doesn't see it that way) & they see it as even more negative. We need to take the high road & demonstrate that there is no reason for more restrictions or elimination of this use. It starts by not allowing negative personal attacks on our opponents, it is furthered by not allowing inappropriate use of the lands by others in our interest group.
It would appear that this particular story is not included in the online version of the paper. So I'll quote the relevant parts, I'm not going to retype an entire half page article though.
"... The half-section the off-road group bought abuts the controversial parcel purchased in 2003 by John Rzeczycki and Kiley Miller, who challenged jeepers trying to drive Lower Helldorado Canyon during April's Jeep Safari, and lost, ...
While Rzeczycki wants to hear the off-road group's plans, Miller says she's worried. "Jeremy's not going to be able to control all those ORVers; those people are very pissed off at me. Their chat rooms have nothing but malicious intent towards me, like 'Let's create as much noise and dust as possible,' or 'Let's create a trail along the property line and call it the B___h trail',and they have my picture with a line through it."
A survey of 4x4 internet chat rooms did turn up refrences to Miller and the photo she mentions, as well as a groundswell of support for privately-owned ORV facilities, which thrive in other parts of the country. While embarrassed about the photo, Parriott says he's excited at the support for the park..."
There are also concerns from the owners of the other 1/4 section, who plan to sub divide & sell off home sites, and another landowner in the area listed in the article. So now we have a significant portion of the neighbors who may be against the idea of an off-road park. If they get upset enough to complain to San Juan County or to file a lawsuit will the group who bought the property still want to try to use it as an off-road park? At some point it will cost them more than it is worth to them. The BLM is also quoted as having some concerns about the activities on the private property spill over onto the public lands & cause unacceptable damage there. In my opinion that is a very legitimate concern, anyone who knew Moab as little as 10 years ago understands exactly the concern being voiced by the BLM here.
Other comments I read in this thread need to be addressed I think. First off the Times Independent is a weekly local paper, so expecting them to have Pulitzer Prize winning writers is completely unrealistic. However they do have some pretty good writers for a small town paper. I believe that they generally do a good job of trying to be balanced in the reporting of their stories. This story really is pretty balanced in my opinion. But it did have just enough of Ms. Miller's side that was basically true to get my attention, and no part of the story that concerned Ms. Miller was untrue. Generally people don't like hearing about someone being mis-treated by others, it tends to make them empathise with the person. That is what I'm getting at here, by saying negative things about her we make others feel sorry for her & more likely to decide that they are in agreement with her. Now the newspaper accurately points out that the 4x4 forums are trashing Ms. Miller & many of the people who had no opinion before are starting to form an opinion in her favor. Ultimately the general public will be the driving force to make a final determination about our use of public lands, so pissing them off is not a good move for us.
Someone said something to the effect of just because someone made a threat in writing on the internet doesn't mean it's serious. You're dead wrong about that. Police agencies will take any threat in writing completely seriously and the courts will back them up 100%. Making threats to harm or harass someone is a crime, saying "aw I didn't really mean it" won't keep you from being prosecuted. Again, the general public judges all of us by the things we tolerate being said by a few of us. This is the kind of thing that turns the majority of people against us.
There will always be those who let their emotions rule & say or write things that can be seen by others in a negative way. The better job we do of controlling that & reducing it, the better we appear in the public's view. So it's in our best interest as a group to control such things being written on the forums we use to prevent them from being used to turn the general public against us. Let our opponents say controversial things & have those statements used against them.
Right now the majority of people in the Moab area are neutral on off-road use of the lands around here. But this situation has brought it to their attention in a way that has many starting to think that restrictions or elimination of this type of use might be a good thing. Throw in all the problems created by EJS (I know that the majority of problems aren't really caused by the participants, but the general public doesn't see it that way) & they see it as even more negative. We need to take the high road & demonstrate that there is no reason for more restrictions or elimination of this use. It starts by not allowing negative personal attacks on our opponents, it is furthered by not allowing inappropriate use of the lands by others in our interest group.
- Location
- Sandy, Ut
Rick B said:
Eh hmmmm.... EZ
Overall, a great reminder to watch what we say/type regarding the actions of othes. Like Rick B said, even if you don't mean it, assume that others will. These landuse battles need to be won out in person (ie... trail cleanups, volunteer work, saving face with the gov. ), not on the internet by disrespecting others...
redrockcrawler
earth rover 2012
- Location
- hooper
what's going to happen when the greene's get their way and we no longer have access to our beloved trails i mean come on all these people are trying to say is watch what you write or you will just be giving the enemy more ammo to use against us.
or we can just keep doing the things we do and let them win one small war at a time that adds up very quickly and becomes our worst nightmare
welcome to the town formerly know as moab population 0000000000
or we can just keep doing the things we do and let them win one small war at a time that adds up very quickly and becomes our worst nightmare
welcome to the town formerly know as moab population 0000000000