Oregon Hikers

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it's over and done with

maybe it was last June?

Water wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 3:15 pm

They set the comment period for Monday June 31st. Everyone seems to have missed it..

I'm on all the email lists and never got any notice of a public comment period. I'm going to be pissed if I missed it.

In the volunteer training I attended last month the people teaching us knew less about the proposal than I did. And there were no details about what free would be, how it would be administered, etc.

They were all too busy throwing John Allen, the Deschutes NF supervisor, a retirement party .

retired jerry wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 3:17 pm

it's over and done with

maybe it was last June?

Jerry, I think you are thinking of the public comment period for the actual decision itself. There is another comment period, supposedly around now, that will be for the permit process/fees themselves.

I'm also on the mailing list and haven't heard anything about this yet. The FS website doesn't indicate that it's happened yet...

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As I read the notice of decision. the fixing of fees is a second and separate proceeding. It appears that the first step is for the local forest officials to convince the Secretary of Agriculture that they should be allowed to charge a 'stewardship fee" under FLREA.
Does the Secretary have authority to authorize such a fee? Will FLREA be allowed to expire? I have read that Trump likes FLREA so Congress might let it go away just to spite him.
If this scheme is to go forward, I believe that there will be a public comment period on the fees but I won't hazard a guess as to when it will take place.

let's see, would Trump favor for this or not?

If Obama would like this plan then maybe Trump will cancel it

I've become totally disillusioned by this whole process. The public comment period on fees will be even more of a sham that the the comment period on the proposals was. They will have decided the fee before the comment period.

My money is still on $10.00 per day per person for day hikers lucky enough to get a permit.

Yeah, it's legislated they have a comment period but they don't have to modify their proposal based on it.

The only way they'd modify the plan is pressure from congress?

Congressmen don't like "mobs" of angry constituents.

The comment period is complete BS. The do it because they have to, not because they even remotely care about the public. The decision has already been made.

I learned this many a year ago when the first Catherine Creek usage proposal was being discussed. There was a comment period for the public to discuss the merits of various proposals. I kid you not, it was the next day or two that USFS had a printed Proposal-X (can't remember the exact number, but it was not one open for public consideration) in printed form for public distribution. It had been created ahead of the public input and they could barely contain themselves in handing it out, much like the punchline to a joke.

Since then, i have only provided written comment, fully knowing USFS has already made up its mind. It feels good to put my ideas into writing, and I am secure in knowing it will go straight to the recycling bin. But that's the way of the world. If you want your opinions heard, you gotta write a check. A big check, and it needs to go high up the totem pole.

How's that for disenchantment with the system.