Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

'" • I M .... III • '" > :; ..., G • ambit t ( by Ron Schneiders ~ w Z w -' U > U REDROCK: WE ON!by Ron Schneiders RED ROCK, WE WON!! Friday the thirteenth turned out to be very lucky for motorcyclists: That Was the date of the Classification hearing on Red Rock Canyon. Several public hearings on the subject of Red Rock's classification had already been held. I reported on one of those hearings that was held in Califontia City some time back. The question has been: Shall Red Rock be classified a S tate Park or a State Recreation Area? Under the existing law motor vehicles in a State Park may be used only for "ingress, egres. and parking." Under thi. law, trails for bikes would be illegal if Red Rock were a State Park. Trails would be permitted if the: area were classified a uS tate Recreation area." Againu us in this matter were qwte an array of organizations including the Sierra Club, The Red Rock Canyon Advisory Commi ttee, many of the Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade in Kern Counry area and about a dozen of the little old·lady groups like the Desert Protective Council. Our allies were few: the Boron Chamber of Commerce, the Four Wheel Drive and Dune Buggy people, the rock hounds, and, .urprisingIy, the State Department of Fish and Game. _ Just why we won i. not readily apparent. The Commission did get a lot of letters from off·road vehicle people, and they were mentioned several times in the meeting, so pat yourself on the back if you wrote. Certainly the heavy mowing at California City helped. But at the actual Classificiation Hearing on Friday those on OUf side were out·numbered at least two to one. As u.ual the four.wheel·drive people and the dune·buggy people showed up in fairly good numbers, with what looked like two complete clubs. CORL's Hildamae Voght with two of her staff, CORVA's. Bob Ham, and Jack Edwards from the CaUfornia As.ociation of 4·wheeJ drive clubs were also there. Representinl( motorcyclists were I Mike llinsbaw and Jack Hurley of AMAjDistrict 37, and myself representing Cycle New•. That was it, except for a few individuals, scattered here and there. There were no club jackets at aiL No one from MIC, CMIC, MORE, any of the monthlies, or any of the XY A organizations who supposedly cater to the family riders who would .. most benefit from Red Rock's proper classification. The testimony from our side varied from adequate·bu t·inspiring to actually damaging. In comparison with the .lide.show.equipped and very forceful Sierra Club speaker, we came off quite badly. The Sierra Club's representative presented "facts" that were, to be charitable, inaccurate, but his points were marp and his overall presentation was polished and professional. When he finished I thought we had lost right there. The Department of Park and Recreation staff was also there in a testimonial role, albeit somewhat more officiaJIy than the rest of us. Dick Brown of the Department's Recreational Traih Committee presented a good argument for our side and laid open the mysteriou. AB 868 that was being presen ted as the cure·all for the problem. (AB 868 was a cure·a11 about a month ago, but that was before it got raped by the Sierra Club.) The Recreational Trails Committee had supported S tate Park status when the original AB 868 was in the offing but had not considered the matter since then. Dick Brown made this clear, and also implied that he felt they would prefer Recreational Area status under the present conditions. William Mott, the Director of the Dept. of Parks and Recreation was not content with this, however, and by questioning forced Brown to admit that the official position of the .Recreational Trails Committee was still for State Park status, and that his {Brown's} testimony was, officially, a minority report. Even so, Brown did us a great deal of go~d because, try as he migbt {and he really wriggled i1Dd squirmed}, Molt was never again able to hide behind AB 868. Mott is·a political appointee of Reagan to his posi tion as head of the Departmen t of Park. and Recreation. He was something of an enigma at this meeting. On the surface he was strongly against us, and out to pull every trick in the book to convince· the Commission to vote in favor of Park status. But here's a funny thing: his deception., obfuscations and sneaky maneuvers were .0 c1um.y and inep t, and so obviously apparen t that I wondered a couple of times if he were really against us after all. The Commission came close to calling him a liar to his face and a couple of time. they were laughing at bim. I don't know much about Mott, but I don't think he's that incompe ten t. Recreation area status in Red Rock would give Mott a lot more leeway, maybe even swing some fund. his way. Bu t he was told by the Sierra Club in no uncertain term. that they wanted Red Rock to be a State Park. Mott doesn't disobey the Sierra Club, at least not openly. But it seems to me that he, posoibly by acciden t, did our side a bit of good. Larry Moss, the Sierra Club'. chief agitator, was apparen tIy so sure of the club'. victory that he allowed one of their second stringers to make the Sierra Club's p~esentation. Mo.s wasn't even there. When he arrived later, to talk to the Commisoion about another matter he seemed shocked that they had disobeyed his orders. He treated the Commission like a teacher would treat a class that he caught throwing erasers while he was out of the room. He scolded them, buUied them and f'mally threatened retribution. Don't look to the White House for the arrogance of Power! Its righ t here in down town Los Angeles. WHY IT HAPPENED With all the official and powerful people against us, it seems absolutely incredible that we won. Red Rock is the sort of place where you need a bike or a jeep to get around most of the year. Not even Sierra Clubbers like to hike wben the temperature is 100 degrees in the shade and there isn't any and making Red Rock a State Park would have essentially limited Red Rock to hikers. But in giving the reasons for their votes none of the Commission members mentioned this. One of the biggest reasons they voted it a Recreation Area was that they want additional lands and those lands won't meet State Park criteria. So when, they get those lands, they would have to hold another series of public hearings on Red Rock. This they didn't want to do. But the biggest reason they voted as they dicl,I feel, was the 74 Park Bond Act. This Act is to Authorize the sale of some $250,000,000 in bonds to finance' a vast improvement in the State Park system. The Commis.ion and the Parks Department personnel are looking towards this Bond Act like a kid looks toward Christmas. But they are well aware that the Bond Act i. chancey at best and might well be defeated, especially if they have managed to thoroughly alienate a million or so motorcyclists. The Sierra Club won't try to defeat the Bond Act no matter what the commision does. But we could. So we got Red Rock, or more precisely. the possiblity of a few trails through Red Rock. I'U do a full column on this Park Bond sometime in the near future. It can mean a lot to us, both in term. of possible benefits and as a weapon. ORANGE STICKlES AND SUCH In my last column someone at Cycle News did a bit of editing by the simple expendient of losing about two manuscript pages ou t of the middle. You readers were asked to write to me to express your opinion but most of what you were to express your opinion about wasn't there. So I'll try again. To summarize the portion that did appear last time, the bike registration scene is a real mess. Only a few people are buying the green stickies because; first of all, the green stickie doesn't do anything for them, and secondly, the chances of getting caught are pretty slim at the momen t. But those few people who have bough t stickies are yelling at the Parks Departmen t to do some thing. We were supposed to get more riding land from the Green Stickie money and it hasn't happened. Not only that, but it's not likely to happen the way things are going. There isn't enough money in the til to buy a vacant lot. The Parks departmen t is caugh t in the middle and under some pretty heavy fires from both ends. The orange stickie is one possible solution. It would have the effect of making everyone do some thing, either buy a license, a green stickie or an orange stickie. The Orange Stickies would be purely and simply a harrassment device. No one would get any money out of them except the CHP. The question is, would most riders buy green stickies then, or license plates? My guess is that they would buy license plates because there are just too few areas to ride where a green stickie is sufficient. About the only place right now is the desert, and only then if you make sure you stay off coun ty·main tained roads. lf the majority of riders are forced to buy license plates, by a combination greenjoTanl(e stickie program, we lose in a big way: None of the money spent for license plates curren tly goes for riding areas or trails. None. At all. Period. A second pos.ible solu tion is this: The green10range stickie program could be dropped entirely. Instead ail bikes (with the exception of those used strictly on private property like motocrossers and Class C riders, etc.) would be required to have a license plate. But there would be two differences from the licensing program as it exists today: First, when you register your bike you would be asked to punch a hole in the LBM card if your

• Cover