Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

This USED to Be Your Land- Now You're an Outlaw The BLM and the EI Cajon M.C.- What Really Happened by Ron Schneiders Someone once said that there has never been a simple human event. The truth of that statement has never been more evident than in the circumstan cs surrounding a desert race hosted by a small club from San Diego's AMA District 3 . The members of the EI Cajon :vI.C. have heen very upset by the BLM's interim I::md use regulations. These regulations are due to expire at the end of this year, but they are !.9 be replaced by pennanent regulations of roughly similar nature. The regulations are fairly complex. but essentially they require that a club planning LO host an event obtain a Special Land Use PermiL prior to holding the event and pay a fee after the event of $ l.00 per entrant or 5% of the gross, \v hich ever is greater. As a condition LO obtaining th permit, the club musL post a bond, supply maps of the course and purchase insurance. In this dub's case:: the bond was to be $I,pOO. According Lo Chick Diamond, club president, the £1 Cajon M.C. had no objection to most of the regulations, but sLrongly objected to paying the fee (about $250) and purchasing the bond, which would have cost approximately S40.00. They notified the BLM that they had no intention of buying the bond or paying the fee. According to Mr. Diamond, there was no intention of promoting a "test case" or anything else: they simply felt thaL those were unfair requirements and they were not going to comply with them. The BL\1 responded by appealing to Judge Terrintine of U.S. Federal Court in San Diego for a Temporary Restraining Order. The appeal was denied. but according to Director Penney, it was a minor victory. " ... he Uudge Terrintine) ended up by saying that the regulations were reasonable and .in accordance with law, or Constitution, I Lhink was the word used ....he said that, in spiLe of that, he was going to give them a free ride because he didn'L have the Lime to give proper consideration and analyze the whole situation. But if 1 understood it right, he said, 'Now don't think, that you should come back and get this same kind of tI ·atmenl again." This was quite different from what Judge Terrintine told me. lle said Lhat in a legal sense, all he had <;lone was deny the TRO on the basis of insufficient time. Afterwards, he made a couple of offhand remarks in an effort Lo gel the club and the BLM to work together. lle told the club" LhaL, "On the surface, without argument, the regulations appear regular." He also noted that the club did h ave a repuLation for cleaning up after the races (the ostensible) purpose of the perfonnance oond, but that some other groups didn't and as he put it, "The rain must fallon the just as well as the unjust.·' He emphasized that he had in no way ru led on the validity. the reasonableness or the constitutionality of the BLM regulations. According to Mr. Jan Ronis, the club's attorney, the only substantive question to be discussed in the TRO action was whether or not there would be "irreparable damage to the desert on that weekend (if the club conducted the race). He U udge Terrin tine) was only concerned with damage to the desert'" Mr. Ronis said, "and the the BLM representative stated that environmental sLudies had been conducted (in other races) and there was no significant environmental damage. They (the BLM) would have issued the club a permit, had they applied for one." The race was held. Following the race, the Los Angeles Times printed an article about the impending court suit 1.0 be brough t by the BLM. They quoted Mr. Penney on the subject of the damage done. "Penney said he was not certain whether damage done to the desert noar can be repaired," the; Times reported, and continued with 3. direct quote from l\fr. Penney. "The de~elt is so fragile and rehabiliLaLion so difficulL thaL iL may be impossible," he said. By Wednesday, Mr. Penney was not sure Lhere had been any damage. lle said to this reporter, "Now as to whether or nOt on their particular course they ran over any significant areas, I'm not prepared to say." Their solicitor. Burt Stanley said, "We are defmitely going to file a lawsuit for the fee. It will be a civil " lJ -...,..- r'-'---'- -- j 1 '~: '"~ r-········ ." .;J "":.~ ..t_. .I..... ~ ••• # I,ff'. ., JI ""--'--- " ..----_...._-_ .. • 1. . , ... '._ YfAho. ; Mal., 'C.tCAtltltrM Sire 'l.. .I .: I '.', II I I 9\ /' . I' BlM map of El Cajon M.C. Hare Scrambles course. This is not the club's map. suit. If there's any damage, we'll tack that on." (Italics mine.) According to one of the club members. during the race it seemed like Lhere were more BLM and news media people there Lhan motorcyclists. There were two helicopters over the area the entire day and several light planes. One of the 'copters belooged to the BLM, the oLher to the Navy. Most of the'staff of the Riverside BLM office was present as well as Director Penney. The club may not have wanted a "test case" but apparently they were going to be involved in onc, like it or not. The reaction of the BLM was unusual, to put it mildly. They were dealing with a tiny club and a small race, only 200 or so en Lran ts, as compared with 2,000 entranLs in some of the biggers races in the District 3i area. One migh Lhave expected the BLM to file suiL after the race to obtain the fees stipulated, and perhaps to obtain some damages if the club failed LO clean up the area. They might have tried to obLain an injunction to prohibit fULure races for which DO permit had been obtained. This would have been a reasonable action and its about what the dub expected. The BL '1's massive reaction seemed a biL like going after a fly with a howitzer. Enter the archeological question. Again, from the LA Times artide: "Penney described the general site of the race as 'one of the richest archeological areas i'n the deserL, perhaps in the UniLed States." The 21,OOO-year old remains of an Indian were found there, - the oldesL ever recovered in the Western hemisphere and the area cont~dns many, many Indian art works and in taglios - huge etchings - on the desert noor, 'Penney said". A citE to the Archeological Research Unit of the University of Califomia at Riverside produced a somewhat different story. The Yuha !Vlan was discovered in the area, but his di!'lcovery was by an a.mateur archeologist and, while he is believed to be quite old, he ha.:,. not) et been scientifically studied, there spokesman told me. There are three know intaglios in the area occupying about ten acres of the several million acre desert. Yes. some parLs of Yuh a desert might be areheologicaJly very valuable. The Yuha is one of several Lypes LhaL they (the U of C group) would like LO study LO determine if iL is archeologically importanL enough to warranL a full scale sLudy. There are probably several small areas in the Yuha that are very important. The BLM hired a private archeological rcscar h firm, Archeological Research Inc., of Costa Mesa, Calif. to study the area and determine what, if any damage was done to the area. They would not tell me what they had discovered for fear of jeopardizing their future contracts wiLh government organizaLions. Their spokesman did say however, that there was "nothing earthshaking" in their report. The club knew that they were in an area where arcbeological finds had been made. Their position was that they were using an area that had been used by themselves and other clubs from the area for the past 22 years and that they had used almost the identical course on at least three separate occasions. I L was all old, established trail. Anything damaged was already damaged long before this race. The media response to the £1 Cajon race did the club no good. lt was distorted and non-factual. In the case of the Los Angeles Times, this can be attributed simply to very poor journalism. The Times was aware of the fact that there was to be a dispute: they ran a story before the race outlining the problem. BUL they sent no one down to cover the event. Instead, they wrote a story following the event based on a conversation with Russ Penney. They didn't bother to check the other side at all. They didn't check to see if Penney was telling the truth; they simply printed just about everything he said as fact. As we've noted already, the facts as presen ted by Penney are, in the most charitable interpretation, distorted. But perhaps the Times doesn't have research facilities equivalent to those of Cycle News. The case of the CBS coverage is somewhat more complex. Bob Simmons did attend the evenL and did attempt to get both sides of t.he story. The club, not expecting any coverage, had no prepared latement, nor was anybody particularly prepared to talk to the press. Simmons found race chairman, Tom Brown, who was very cordial and talked to him abouL the joys of riding over "virgin" territory and' explained thaI they were testing "The BLM's rightto tell them where they could ride." Brown was apparently superimposing his own views on the club's effort. bUL there was not way for Simmons to know Lhat. Simmons said, "The question that I put to them was why they insisLed on even going close to that fossil man area. They seemed to be deliberaLely baiting the Feds, exposing themselves LO unnecessary public condemn arion which they otherwise wouldn't have had. Apparen Lly. the riders assumed that any coverage they were going to get was going to be bad, and they went out of their way to make sure it was. "There was a IOl of obvious resenlment &.hat we were filming the race down there and a little bit of harrassment," Simmons said, and added, "bu t I don't mind that." When I explained to him the real problems that the lubs were facing with the fees, the insurance, and the bonds, most of which he was hearing for the first time, he said. "That sounds like a legiLimate bitch. 1 can see that.'· It's LoO bad that he couldn't have been told that at the race. He'd have had a beLLer story and the c1uh would have had better coverage. One of the factors that seems to have Mr. Penney most put out is the fact that the club changed the course the night be{ore the event. In talking to me about the situation, :\1r. Penney commented, "We would have issued them a permit had they complied with all the other requirmen ts except for that location. They didn't use thaL location. They wen t over in to a very valuable archeological area. n In fact, the race course was not changed with respect to location. but part of it was eliminated. There were originally to be two loops. one north of Interstate 8 and one south of the IntersLate. The day before the event the club discovered that they had inarlverten tly crossed some . avy properly on the northern loop. In order to avoid trespass problems, Lhey simply -eliminated that portion of the course and instead of muking two circuits of the two loops, the riders ran four times over the sourthern loop. According to Chick Diamond, the BLM people were waiting out on the cancelled northern pOrLion of the route to photograph the riders. One suspects that was the function of the Navy helicopter as well. But ti,e riders never came by. The BLM, having good maps and having been over the proposed course the day before. obviously knew that there was Navy land on the northern loop and the fact that their photographers were staLioned out there plus the presence of the Navy helicopter tend to confirm this supposition. Had they succeeded in getting their "evidence", I suspect a court would have been asked to decide whether·they were in fact trapping violators or themselves guilty of entrapment. In any event, the club was lucky in that they discovered the mistake before the race and they acted wisely in cancelling that portion of the course. 'When any reaction seems out of proportion to the initiating action, it is only natural to ask, Why? The BLM spen t more money trying to build a case against the £1 Cajon M.C. than they could reasonable expect to recover in fees from that district in the next three years. Courts costs for each side are expected to exceed $20,000. This expenditure migh t be reasonable if the BLM were attempting to establish the legality of their permanent regulations. but they are not: these are only interim regulations and are due to expire in less than a month. The case might be worthwhile in establishing a principle, if they had a good chance to win, but it takes little legal savvy to rea:lize that Lhe BLM has a very poor case. The fees they are requiring are out of line (twenty to 100 times greaLer than _ what the forest service charges for the same type even t.) and tb ey are discriminaLory (No other desert recreationists arc charged such fees). They will not be able to charge trespass and it seems unlikely thaL they will be able to substan tiate any claims of damage to the environment. The club claims they stayed entirely on old Lrail and they cleaned the area scrupulously. A heavy rain the following nigh t even washed out most of the tracks. Even if the BLM could, through this suit, ensure that thev could collecL fees, the fees do them no good: all the money goes into the general fund. 0 why pursue a course - that offers little gain if successful and sLands, mosL probably, to lose? Please turn to P. 69 .M M ~ c.. ,.. en M ai c ..., '" en ;;: w Z W ..J U >U

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