Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

I Blueprint for a police state Officer Hanson and the ladies from C,A.N ,T, The Man was saying, "Enforcement is big business. By issuing 6,000 citations a year, two officers could gen era te $3 50 ,000 in Im - 50 show at Kern wilderness protest; Aug. 19 organization meeting planned By Owen Kearns, Jr. JOHNSONDALE, CA,JULY 2 Eleven years late, perhaps, but with their backs firmly to the wall in mountains and deserts, recreationalists have determined to fight further public land grabs by government and will seek to roll back past excesses. That was the consensus of a rally over the Independence Da y Weekend , held a dozen miles northwest of Johnsondale , a Tulare County logging community at the 6,OOO·foot level of the Sequoia National Forest, overlooking many of the !l06,OOO acres of prime recreational land stolen by Congress through th e Golden Trout closure enacted earlier th is year. In other directions. the 50 protestors - representing at least as many varied organizations - could view a portion of the 6.2 million acres of California forests targeted for takeover through the U .S. Forest Service's RARE II. now subject of hearings. They voted unanimously to establish a giant , umbrella organization with financial and legal firepower to cou n tera ct - in court. if necessary th e legislative-bureaucratic-environmentalist giganticus which has prevailed in Washington since the late 1960s. yet First meeting of the group . unnamed. will be held in th e Kern River State Park, 10 m iles northeast of Bakersfield. on Saturday, Aug. 19. All hunters, users of public lands fishermen , trail bikers, cattlemen, timber interests. senior citizens, gem and mineral collectors and m iners . among others - are encouraged to attend. "W e've got to play the game the same way as the Sierra Club." said rally organizer Owen Kearns. Jr . . a Bakersfield newspaper editor, trail rider and longtime motorsport writer. The 50, who numerous times shouted agreement to a number of speakers, came from as far away as San Diego and Vacaville. Among them was Fresno Republican Chip Pashayan who seeks to unseat Rep . John Krebs (D · Fresno) a Sierra Club activist and architect of a U .S. House of Representatives move to bar skiers from the Mineral King area of the central Sierra Nevada. Also speaking was Kern County Fourth District Supervisor Trice Harvey , one of a dozen seeking to succeed the late Rep. William M . Ketchum, the rally's prime legislative as sponsor until his untimely death on June 24 . Harvey, a onetime desert rider (a long wit h his administrative assistant Karl Hettinger) ,. sold his 250cc machine to finance his initial - and successful - political effort in 1976. 'Petitions being circulated in opposition to congressionally created wilderness (where none . previously existed) have garnered more than 2 ,000 signatures. "T he 1978 Golden Trout Wilderness Act. which closed many long-used two and four-wheel trails in the Sequoia National Forest, should be amended , lifting restrictions on areas of historic multiple use, " says the petition. "We support protection of true wilderness but do not believe Congress can and should create wilderness where it does not exist." The petitions, and pictures of the July 2 protest , will be forwa rd ed to U .S . Sen. S.1. Hayakawa (R -C aliL), who personally inspected the controvers ial 127 ,000 acres of th e total Golden Trout package before vot ing against the bill. Hayakawa will be invited to th e Aug. 19 meeting. Several points wer e clarified du ring the rally: The federa l government itself. through the Depression era Civilian Conservation Corps. built the trails allowing recreationalists into the Kern Plateau. Many national forest trails are built a nd maintained by volunteers , at no cost to the taxpayer. Ironically. OCMC members were repairing winterravaged trails in the Cannell Meadow area of the Sequoia while the rally was taking place. Trail bikers. with Forest Service approval, voluntarily bu ilt the Grass hopper Flat campground on the banks of the Kern River 's headwaters, now off-limits to trail bikers. Golden trout. subject 'o f the Sierra Club's Kern Plateau concern , aren't na tive to most of th e Golden Trout wilderness. Cattlemen. not ecologists, were responsible for spread of the fish - now a hybrid, for the most part to th e Little Kern and , ultimately to most western states. While there was some sen tim en t fo r a protest ride into the Golden Trout , the idea was vetoed by rallyists. Rallyists are determined to fight for a rollback legally but did not rule out civil disobedience if a major challenge fails . "We have nothing to gain by five or 10 bikers getting arrested ," said Kearns. "Nobody is going to even hear about that in Washington . .. it won't make the papers or TV. "You want to talk about ride-ins, let's wait 'til we get several thousand." Details on forthcoming protests are available from Kearns at !l04 Electra Avenue, Bakersfield, CA 9!1!108 , (805) !l2!1-76!11 or !l9!1·612I. perial County. where t he fin e for excess ive noise is $65 ." In t his case. 'T he Man was one Officer H arold Hanson of th e California Highway Patrol , and th e occa sion was a public hearing on motorcycle noise co nt rols, proposed by th e U .S . En vironment al Protection Agency. It began to ge t weird from th e time we found the hearing room - no sma ll task in An aheim's sp ra wling convent ion center next to Disneyland . W e were met by ' quiet smiling ladies' handing out agenda shee ts (sorta' like th ey do before chu rch sta rts) a nd by a cu te little audio-visual projector. You know , one of those automatic slide/ sound 'jobs, reeling through its pre· determined program . This on e was about three slides out of synch with its sound tra ck , but you got the gist of it. It op ened up with the sound of a Honda XLv series singl e stoc k (probably one of the quietest mot orcycles of its type a ro u nd) a nd th en cut to a "m ini drama" of a hou sewife u pset by that a wfu l loud mo tor cycle . T hen it kept ge tti ng weirder , possib ly because it was ou t of synch . I rem ember at one po int it showed a m otorcycle dealer d isp lay th a t advertised " Lo ud and Powerful Mufflers" while th e sou nd track ra m bled on about somet hing enti rely differe nt , (W hen was the last tim e you saw a mu ffler adve rtised as lou d and powerful ? Qu iet and powerful , maybe - even if the pro d uct was neith er. Evidentlv th e slide show was the wor k of another subcontractor, rig ht . E PA ?) Officer H a nson was firs t u p a t th e podi um . H e is proba bly th e Cali forni a Hi ghway Pat ro l's Number One noi se enfo rcer. They have two. Both of th em work San Diego Co u n ty with noise meter a nd ever -sensitive ea r, writing up violations of California 's existing m ot or cycle noise law ' (which , in cid entall y, is eq uiva lent to EPA 's 'first stage ru le . sched uled to go into effect for bikes b ui lt a fter J an. I , 1980). " We all know no ise whe n we hear it ," bea med . the shi ny-c heeked H anson . "A sto ck motorcy cle flows thro ugh tra ffic u nnoticed ." (Must be why so ma ny ca r drivers na il us a nd th en say , " I didn 't see him." ) " But ," said H a nson , pausin g d ra matically and pointing to h is ear , " my 'meter' pe rks up at a lou d mod ified or defective muffler. " It seems th at t he good officer trusts his car be tter than his noise met er. Even said so. in so m any words. Asked if he felt a ll CHP officers sho uld be eq uip ped with m eters , he said no . H e figu res a ny CHP trooper ca n wr ite ticket s by ea r. Asked for numbers, he sa id " By m y own ci ta tio ns , 85 % are off the meter. W ith othe r beat office rs , it's mostly judgem ent. " • According to Ha nson . a noise tic ket is one of the easiest to write a nd win in court , ba sed on "obvious to th e most casua l observer " testimony. " It wou ld be a lucrative busin ess." he expl ained . "You work noise uphill , spee d downhill. H ave you r meter office r at a ca rd table back in t he brush . your m ike on a 100 foot ca b le. H e ca lls the catch office r down stream a nd . . ." One more side note to Hanson's testimony. The EPA panel was somewh a t skeptical of that "easy win" in court. Hanson backed away a little; " If the defendant is well -read in the Vehicle Code and the officer is not , he runs into moderate p roblems. If he comes up against an expe rt he would probably lose . " Bu t we're n ot dealing with experts," he sai d wit h a thinlyrepressed smirk. " Peop le who own Rolls Ro yces don't put on side pi pes . Here , we're dealing wit h th e you ng , th e in experi en ced . .. " Somewh at la ter in t h ~ dav, we were trea ted to th ree la di es representing Citizens Against Noise Trep ass C .A .N .T. , for short. Up they m arch ed. in colu m n form a tion , two neurotic housewives and a Rosie the Rivet er type , The latter had en ough juttin g breastwork to qualify as an aircraft carrier. The first Neurotic Housewife proceeded to work herself up to the frothing-at -the-mouth stage by declaring that motorcycle noise all comes from macho . exaggera ted by a heavy foot. Asked to clarify that . sh e repeated, "Yes, it all stems from a heavy foot ." . I'm ' not gonna question the lady's judgement..Maybe all the bikers in her neighborhood do ride up hills with their feet on the handlebars. If so, no wonder she's neuroti c, The second N .H. must have been a closet posey-sniffer, as her main concern was that noisy bik ers disturbed the little critters in her back yard. "W e' re all part of one great chain of life, you know," Rosie th e Riveter . however, had littl e concern for th e spiders a nd th e sq uirrels in N .H . number two's back yard . " If mot orcycle riders think th eir noise is music , th ey ought to be lock ed in a closet listening to reco rds of it. Su re . I go to a d isco and listen «' loud mu sic. but that's m y business. Wt.en th ese people d isturb me in 1:1} living room , th a t's trespass," Well , th ere you have it , folks. You noisy bikers out there , you're all Noise T respassers. a nd you're go nna pay . Officer Hanson and the ladies from C .A. N .T. say so . T hey a ll th ink th e EPA 's noise regs a rc t he nea test th ing since th e in vent ion of sex . They'r e getting th e glim me r of a noti on that co u ld be th e blueprint for th e ideal middle -class poli ce sta te. You see. California has ju st passed a very funny voter ini tiative ca lled Proposition I!I. Wha t it do es is limit property taxes some way or another , a nd every body thi nks it's a goo d jab at Big Go vernment. From the way som e politicians a re weepin g a nd wailing abou t it , maybe it's so. Other pol iti cians, a ppare ntly mor e kn owledgea ble , smi le a nd wink at the ca mera, say ing. "W e'll get by." Maybe they've been talkin g to Officer Hanson . You see , tr affi c fines get reverted ba ck to th e loca l go vernments in th e area s where th ey were collected , ea rma rked for schoo ls, health care. milk for th e poor kid s an' like th a t. Now, if the state is forced to pull in its fina n ica l horns, and th e -vot ers say no new ta xes , and th e pol s say "We'Il get by," you can im agi ne where th ey're going to ge t th e money to fill th e gap . can't you ? ( If you don't want it to be your money, better become well -read in th e Veh icle Code . Exp ert , even .) You see , Officer Hanson wasn 't kidding with those numbers he tossed ou t. Two cops with a noise meter (and/or a tin ea r) really can. if uncontested. ge ne rate $!l50.000 in noise fines a year if they try hard . And you know blo ody well th ey don't pay cops $175,000 eac h. Think of the whopping profit tha t 900 to 1,500 cops could me an to a state that's facing taxpayer revolt. Something tells me this isn't just confined to California , Big business? Yes, indeed , • Lane Campbell 37

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