Meeting Report - CORBA trail use meeting 3/2/11

[shudder]

Hey folks --

A bunch of STR peeps showed up for the meeting at MCSP yesterday evening -- myself, kanga, xXP00L$hReDDaXx, Jmoe29er, perhaps others. It was cold and rainy, and the house was packed. There were a lot of bike folks out, and that was great to see.

Several people were still standing out in the rain at this point...



Craig Sap, Acting District Superintendent, made some intros and got the meeting going, and immediately turned things over to Karl Knapp, Roads and Trails Manager of the Facility Management Division. Karl, flanked here by Trail Supervisor Dale Skinner on the right, below, showed a lengthy powerpoint deck on the process the parks go through to approve new uses of the trails within their system.



In short, the process for trail approval/changes/alterations looks like this sheet they posted up on the wall:



Not insignificant, and not uncomplicated! The current trail project to make Yearling and Lookout trails at the MCSP available to MTBs is in the stage just prior to the CEQA process. Says here in this pic that's "Construction Work Log", but there seems to be a missing step in the sheet -- the more detailed Trail Use Change Process Diagram they handed out at the meeting -- which is this same process, but in much greater detail -- shows a step prior to CEQA, which is where the current project is: According to Karl, the project has been allowed for change in use as a recommendation by the evaluation team. Next step is the CEQA process. Hope that's clearer...

When finished with the deck, Karl asked for questions regarding the process. A few folks raised their hands and asked legitimate questions, but then a few surly gadfly folks who were obviously angry attempted to get their concerns heard regarding non-process issues. Karl handled these pretty well, but pretty much directed folks at the next portion of the meeting, which would consist of breaking up into smaller groups to discuss specific issues.

The meeting then broke up and we moved our chairs aside:



They had tables in the corners of the room where you could discuss and comment about individual issues, such as Multi-Use or Conflict Enforcement:



I know they were hoping for lots of comments, so I made sure to put some of my thoughts down in words for them.

I walked over to Topanga Sector Superintendent Lynette Brody's table where she was involved in a discussion with an unhappy man. He wanted to know if she kept a database of conflicts. He kept asking her that, over and over. Okay then.



Lynette was really great, as were all the Parks personnel, to a one, including all the rangers in attendance -- nice bunch of folks. I felt like all the bikers there were about open use for trails (at least, that's my perspective on it), while the hikers, docents and equestrians were all about shutting down access, or in this case, NOT opening up access. I could definitely sense a lot of anger in the room, coming primarily from the other groups represented. One of the docents was almost enraged that she and her group were not given preferential treatment in terms of their knowing about the meeting. That was really weird -- Craig made it very clear that she and her group had been almost the first folks told about the meeting.

All the bikers I spoke to seemed cheery and happy to be there, including this bunch of gals, the Dirt Chix, who were out in force, smiles engaged!



Here's a shot of my boy xXP00L$hReDDaXx speaking with kanga and Acting District Superintendent Craig Sap:



Craig is fully open to discussing this, and any other trail matter under his concern, with anyone at any time. Hey -- I spoke to him this morning!

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Craig Sap, Acting District Superintendent
email: csap@parks.ca.gov
phone: 818.880.0396

A shot of our own tireless bike man and CORBA Director kanga, and Jeff Klinger, former Director of CORBA (2003-11):



And finally, a couple of snaps of Mark Langton, Chairman pro tem of CORBA, working the room:





- shud

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ADDENDUM
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After the meeting, one fellow named Jim Thornton apparently started up an inflammatory blogspot using Karl Knapp's name, wherein, like a child of about 7, he calls Mr. Knapp names, specifically "Trails Idiot". Nice:

http://karlknapp.blogspot.com/

Doesn't seem real ethical to me. Underhanded and deceitful is more like it. Consider this: Thornton posted up this pic of a pristine, open, trail-less meadow on the blog he created using Karl Knapp's name:



That's Mulholland HIGHWAY there on the right of his pic, by the way, and you can even see a wee bit of Yearling right about in the center of the picture:



But, here's another view of that same meadow (this pic from hikespeak.com), but a bit further east:



Hm. Seems Yearling Trail is well in evidence in the meadow. In fact, this hikespeak pic appears to have been taken from directly on the trail -- at or near the yellow X on the pic below -- while Thornton's picture seems to have been shot from out in the meadow somewhere -- approximately where the red X is below:



Thought you weren't supposed to leave the trails!!! Whatever -- folks often will warp the truth to suit their own needs, like the guy who spoke up at the L.A City Council meeting from a few days ago who said mountain bikes weighed 150 pounds. Right. Ridiculously uninformed..

[kanga]

Thanks Mike and everyone else who came out. For a change we weren't outnumbered 10 to 1... it was more like 60-40. That's a great sign. Over 125 people were there. The evening spent more time on explaining the process of how the change in use is being made than the specifics of this particular trail change. I'll be putting more details up on CORBA's page later tonight or tomorrow morning. Right now I need to ride. It's been a hectic week....