[Huckermatt]

Hi Matt:
The City Council met last night and unanimously gave the mayor approval to
contact you regarding their decision to have you remove your bike structures.
The mayor wanted to do this, as opposed to me. You may contact him via email
if you wish @ ellie@olynet.com. I am sure that he will be in contact with you
soon. There is one problem right now, and that is that we have closed the City
Forest to the public due to extreme fire danger. All surrounding adjacent
private forest lands are also closed. So...until we open up the City Forest
after we have had significant rain to reduce the fire danger, we do not want
you to go there. And the fine and problems you would get into if caught there
wouldn't be something you'd want. Anyway, sorry about the structures, but it
has a lot to do with concept that once a landowner allows "unnatural, man-made"
types of structures, we lose our recreational liability protection, and that is
not something that we or anybody else wants or can afford.
Yours, Ron Schillinger
City of Montesano



Quoting matt caldwell <huckermatt@hotmail.com>:

> Hey Ron, I was wondering if you had any information on what is happening
> with the decision of the stunts. Also, would it be wise for us to try and
> attend the city council meetings with some friends to show support for the
> trail?
>
> Thanks Ron,
> Matt

 

[SR]

what about only 'natural' stuff...i.e. no wood work?

 

[RhinofromWA]

what about only 'natural' stuff...i.e. no wood work?

I thinkit gets sketchy with the "man-made" addition in the email.

 

[oly]

Matt, sorry to see that mail.

They would only see XC singletrack as "natural" any jumps or drops would probably venture into people getting hurt land.....

 

[Huckermatt]

I thinkit gets sketchy with the "man-made" addition in the email.

Yeah, I don't want to start moving dirt and such just to have them tell me to remove that also. I spent almost 2 years on what's there now (not at any regular pace) and I will be removing it to put at another location somewhere?

 

[MTB_Rob_NC]

I have no idea what the background is here, and the fire situation certainly sounds reasonable, but....

Contact IMBA, this sounds like a well intentioned but mis-informed Land manager.

 

[Snacks]

Yeah, I don't want to start moving dirt and such just to have them tell me to remove that also. I spent almost 2 years on what's there now (not at any regular pace) and I will be removing it to put at another location somewhere?

Hey Matt, maybe you should contact Kevin and talk to him. Ron gave him permission to build on the land back there, but I'm not sure what type of building he was talking about.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

 

[trailhacker]

I don't think they are against building trails that include drops or jumps. They (the forrest people - not the nymphs and gnomes either) are the ones that built the "gap" jump at the end of the trail.
I think the message they want to get accross is to let them know what you'd like to build. They will look at what and where you want to build and go from there.
For the race they gave me approval for the changes in about three days. The forrest is the property of the city of Monty so there is almost no red tape.
They also gave me the go-ahead to build more trails, but to let them know where and what first so they could make sure their wouldn't be any issues.
I think their concerns with the stunts is they are man-made "structures".
BTW, they always close the forrest towards the end of summer for fire danger, I don't think he meant anything personal by what he said.

P.S. Matt I sent you a PM a while back. Get back to me if you could. Thanks.

 

[oly]

Matt, I have a place to store your lumber if you guys need..... im sure you may have closer places to put it, but if not.... give me a shout.

 

[Huckermatt]

I have no idea what the background is here, and the fire situation certainly sounds reasonable, but....

Contact IMBA, this sounds like a well intentioned but mis-informed Land manager.

Me and AJ met with the city council members and the mayor at the trail to show them the stunts and what we had in mind. They gave us about 15-20 minutes to explain our case. They were pretty shocked to see what we had built, and only 1/4 of the council seemed interested in listening to us. The biggest problems they had were why we didn't come to them first before we built the stunts, and that once they accept man made stuctures they lose thier liability. I will have to read up on the IMBA manual and some other sources to see if this is true. They also told us that if the city was to build stunts out there they would have to do envir. impact studies and get architects to draw up the plans and so on and so forth. So they decided to have us remove them so they have no responsibility for them.

For those of you who never saw it, I will try and post some pics later of what I have.

 

[WSUDirtrider]

Yeah, I read it in the Vidette a couple weeks back about the trails having to be removed. You have to remember that our city council here in Montesano isn't the brightest. In fact three of the members are currently being held with some legal problems of their own for having meetings without notifying the public. They want to cut out alot of city jobs such as the city forrester aka Ron Schillinger, the montesano parks and recreation department, and our police department. So when matt or AJ say that they didnt seem to interested, they hit the nail dead on.

It really is sad though that such a well engineered freeriding trail has to be taken out. I've ridden it a handful of times now even though the forrest is closed but then again, I have been riding dirtbikes and mtn bikes out there for 10 years whether it was closed or not. It is really dry up there right now.

As for Ron being mad or not, he isn't it just has to do with our original agreement between himself and us local monte riders. Ron allows us to build trails as long as we do not make man made structures from materials brought it. With the downhill course there were some exceptions made when we made jumps such as the gap jump. However, if you were to look closely at the gap you would see that the materials are from what was surrounding in nature. Also, the gap was put in where a drainage problem was being taken care of as well so it was cut out to put in a culvert. Ron was actually impressed with the quality of craftsmanship that went into the stunts.

Jake Stein
Montesano, WA