EISPIRATEN

Local politician wants to bypass Congress and get President Obama to designate the San Gabes a national monument: San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

From the San Gabriel Valley Tribune - three days ago

I've been told that I will be attending that meeting on the 26th. It might be interesting to see what they have to say.
I'll be driving a silver Dodge Durango, license # xxxx646 if anyone wants to say "Hi".

tracker wrote: ↑I've been told that I will be attending that meeting on the 26th. It might be interesting to see what they have to say.
I'll be driving a silver Dodge Durango, license # xxxx646 if anyone wants to say "Hi".

tracker, is that meeting in Baldwin Park? The article didn't state clearly the date of the meeting. Thanks.

I couldn't help but notice that the article didn't go into detail or encourage folks to attend the meeting; despite most of the the text of the article being taken directly from the FS release which does have those details. The meeting will be on 8/26 at the Baldwin Park Performing Arts Center, 4640 N. Maine Ave., B.P., 91706. It is scheduled to run from 4 to 7:30 PM.

Presidents have used their power to designate areas as national monuments for a long time when Congress wouldn't act. While it doesn't offer the same protections as a national park, it does help save quite a few areas from development/plundering. Teddy Roosevelt did it quite often, such as with Pinnacles Natl Monument (1908?, just east of Salinas) due to its unique volcanic geology; it became a national park in 2011. I believe he's also responsible for Devils Postpile Natl Monument and Death Valley (formerly a natl monument, now a national park). JFK used it for the Point Reyes Seashore (north of San Francisco) in the early 1960s to stop development prior to Congress making it part of the national parks system a few years later. Bill Clinton also used it to give some protection to the Carrizo Plain area (west of Bakersfield).

I am opposed to this end run around Congress and the last few years of work in dealing with National Recreation proposals.

As I am actively involved in the Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run, designation of the San Gabriels as a National Monument would likely spell the end of one of the original great 100 mile mountain endurance runs.

If you have any doubts, here is an example: National Parks Conservation Association Press Release

Aw, com'on Mike. It says right in the release that the goals are to make the forest cleaner and more enjoyable for the people who use it. Who wouldn't want those things?
It must all be true if it's on the internet- and written by the government

tracker wrote: ↑Aw, com'on Mike. It says right in the release that the goals are to make the forest cleaner and more enjoyable for the people who use it. Who wouldn't want those things?
It must all be true if it's on the internet- and written by the government

Oh, gosh, tracker! You're absolutely correct. I promise to be more trusting

IF the Pro Cycling Challenge is the race I'm familiar with, that's a bicycling road race that requires closing down paved roads , not dirt tracks, trails, and unimproved dirt forest roads. It'd be something like closing down roads for a marathon here in the L.A. basin.

A better example might be the Western States 100. It goes through national forest land (not monuments) and designated wilderness areas, and the organizers aren't allowed to put in remote aid stations using vehicles to transport supplies into those locations. However, the NFS did allow them to continue the race as long as they stayed on the trail system (no quotas in those sparsely-used wilderness areas). It might be different if the SGM becomes a 'monument', but thats one example.

It might be different if the SGM becomes a 'monument', but thats one example.

Another example is the Badwater ultra.

http://running.competitor.com/2013/12/n ... race_91878

atomicoyote wrote: ↑IF the Pro Cycling Challenge is the race I'm familiar with, that's a bicycling road race that requires closing down paved roads , not dirt tracks, trails, and unimproved dirt forest roads. It'd be something like closing down roads for a marathon here in the L.A. basin.

A better example might be the Western States 100. It goes through national forest land (not monuments) and designated wilderness areas, and the organizers aren't allowed to put in remote aid stations using vehicles to transport supplies into those locations. However, the NFS did allow them to continue the race as long as they stayed on the trail system (no quotas in those sparsely-used wilderness areas). It might be different if the SGM becomes a 'monument', but that's one example.

Good points, atomicoyote. However, it took an act of Congress to allow the Western States 100 and the Tevis Cup (the latter of which I am deeply involved - disclaimer). The WS Foundation supported the creation of the Granite Chief Wilderness and then, once the wilderness was in place, the USFS said no competition may take place across wilderness lands. The USFS did not "allow" the events to take place. It took involvement by the local congressman and land use attorneys too allow the exemption for both. As for remote aid stations and vet checks, they are allowed deep in the Tahoe NF forest with vehicles but there are crew restrictions, i.e. no crew access. (AC is the same in that aid stations are allowed deep in the forest but have crew restrictions.)

The AC 100 was up against similar restrictions when the Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness was established. The USFS told run organizers that the race could not use the portions of trail that went through the new PVR Wilderness. An exemption was eventually procured via a congressional bill with input from the local congressman and Senator Boxer's office. (See the AC 100 Race Book, p.58-59 on the AC website: AC 100)

Will other events, such as the Tour of California, be similarly impacted ? Will National Monument status permanently revoke permission for any of these long-term events such as AC? Is the ANF so severely threatened such that Nat'l Monument status is needed? I'd like to see some of these questions answered before potential dramatic change in forest use policy becomes official.

And you guys are only talking about one specialized type of use. Imagine all the different things going on and how a completely different set of rules will affect them.
Kind'a scary that we are being told not to worry and that this change is needed to protect the forest, and make it cleaner, safer, and more enjoyable.

I can't make it tonight.

So now she wants to run the entire san gabriel mountains and not just the local foothills so....she can build a rail through a national momument. Lol.

Because the "national" designations aren't about preserving anything but control.

It was quite packed. I think the bus-loads of imported supporters had something to do with the size of the crowd.
Odd.
I'll post a pic when I take it off my phone.

I believe it.

"Listening sessions" mean we are supposed to listen to them.

I disagree much with Gifford Pinchot (founder of the US Forest Service), largely based on his Federalist endeavors to commandeer state and private land, as well as his Marxist doctrine of "the greatest for the greatest number" rather than reverence for individual liberty. But I will cut him some slack because of his definition of conservation, a term that he coined in reference to the business of forest management.

He said that the first principle of conservation is development. Essentially, conservation is a conservative approach to land management and resource use. Conservationists use the land for their own needs in a manner that reserves resources for future generations. This idea differs greatly from the concept of preservation applied by the National Park/Monument/Grassland system.

Preservationists, like Conservationists, have an interest in future generations, but they wrongly believe that not using any resources is the only way to reserve most of them. Not only does this approach deny themselves and their children use of the resources, it invites misuse of them, including the crony-capitalism of "preferred" users.

Then there are the elitists. A very few elitists are of the mega-wealthy ruling class, so as much as they would like to preserve the American wild lands for themselves, they cannot pull it off alone. Thus they indoctrinated an army of loyal soldiers and recruited them with peer pressure.

Hence we have the secondary class of elitists: the Environmentalists. They consider themselves intellectually superior to the rest of us, in spite of the fact that most of their beliefs are based on emotion, and believe that they too, due to their elevated position in society, ought to be allowed use the wild lands. Though they have little or no reasonable argument to back their preference for preservation over conservation (in fact, they think conservation is synonymous with preservation), they vehemently defend efforts to keep people [read: riffraff] out of the forest.

The bottom line is that shifting The Angeles from USDA Management to control by the Department of the Interior is bad news for we regular folk, and the right to respectfully use our land.