And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 14:15:15 EDT
Subject: NO TRUCE ON TRAILS FOR HIKERS, CYCLISTS 

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Friday, June 11, 1999 
©1999 San Francisco Chronicle 

URL: 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/0
6/11/NB101521.DTL 




NO TRUCE ON TRAILS FOR HIKERS, CYCLISTS 


Editor -- Carolyn Jones' story (``Improving the Trail Mix,'' 
Marin-Sonoma-Napa Friday, May 21) contains a number of factual errors 
and misrepresents the overall situation here in Marin. 

Here are the prevailing facts: 

Mountain bikers have carved a minimum of 10 known illegal trails in 
federal, state and county public lands in the past two years. Open Space 
District staff have stated that the cost of closing one of those trails 
is $200,000 or more -- and thus is prohibitive. The public may think the 
district will naturally close and repair illegal trails. The district 
cannot repair mountain bike damage of this or any other sort without 
more taxpayer money. 

The normal practice of mountain biking turns these fragile soils and 
steep slopes into 3-foot deep trenches impassable for any use, human or 
beast. Mountain bikers chainsaw down trees, ride over private property 
and demand rights to do so even more. All other beneficial uses of the 
public resources are diminished or damaged by mountain biking, yet 
mountain bikers do not seem to care, and even advertise illegal trails 
to the globe on World Wide Web sites. 

Numerous sheriff's department and police reports have been taken in the 
past 15 months as mountain bikers have committed crimes that include 
assault with a deadly weapon, assault and battery, assault, arson threat 
and trespass. 

The Marin County Board of Supervisors have taken a default position in 
favor of mountain bikers, turning a blind eye to the destruction of the 
resources they are pledged to protect as the board of the Open Space 
District. 

Supervisor Steve Kinsey ordered the district rangers to chainsaw down a 
gate across private property to try to force public access on private 
land. The landowners are suing the county. 

The situation in Marin is like the war for the Black Hills, when the 
miners invaded Lakota territory against the law, and the U.S. government 
refused to enforce the law for them. It is not a rosy truce. It is not a 
love feast. It is a war, and the Board of Supervisors and the mountain 
bikers have ganged up on everyone else. Send your reporters out here to 
see for yourselves. 


MARTHA E. TURE 

Fairfax 


©1999 San Francisco Chronicle  Page 3 

Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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