Mixon's response it just the type of response that concerns me. You know nothing about it and have never been involved and yet you're immediate response is a negative one.
In response to your #1. Despite what you think and I agree it's not caver's fault but you don't actually know that as you are not involved. So your response doesn't matter when we DO NOT OWN THE RESOURCE. It's whatever the owner thinks. It's also the way the emergency contact process for 911 works, deal with it. What you state makes sense but, that's not reality. Reality is the city has a process as does the EMS and Fire Dept. thus our option if we wish to be involved is to follow their process and act accordingly. The fact is that cavers were called as soon as it was determined that they we not familiar enough nor experienced enough to deal completely with the situation, that was within one hour of the original 911 call. If we want access, we do what the powers that be request and then hopefully are asked for input on improvements to the process. 2. Again, you know nothing of the cost, what all was involved with equipment and manpower, time, or protocols. So, it's best not to go out on a limb to suggest that the city process and budget is phony. YOU don't even live in the city of Austin, what do you know? Have you sat on any city boards? Do you attend any meetings w/city staff to work on cave access issues? Do you get called out for cave rescues, or called to provide cave related education or training for EMS and the Fire Dept. - NO, that's what I thought. This is not a discussion about Austin's policies and budget spending, it's a discussion about how cavers can work w/the city, maintain a good relationship, and hopefully thru example, demonstrate our responsible actions on the karst and with Austin's karst resources and thus retain the considerable amount of flexibility and freedom to visit the city of Austin owned caves. If you have facts I'm very interested in hearing them otherwise I'd appreciate your not speculating about the policies and finances of the city of Austin, it only serves to cloud the issue which, is too much info about our caves on the internet. The bottom line is that if we don't take care, we, CAVERS loose access. If you're that certain about the city policies, expenditures etc. I encourage you to move into Austin and get involved. Put your money, or better yet your time, where you mouth is but, please don't just comment and speculate from out in Hays County. Your pet peeve does NOTHING to help the situation. julie --- On Tue, 9/23/08, Mixon Bill <[email protected]> wrote: From: Mixon Bill <[email protected]> Subject: [Texascavers] Ariman's Cave To: "Cavers Texas" <[email protected]> List-Post: [email protected] Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 3:52 PM Not that I want to disagree with Julie's plea not to overly publicize Airman's Cave, but I do want to point out some of the nonsense that is a continual pet peeve of mine whenever public-agency involvement in cave rescues is discussed. 1) It is not the cavers' fault that the agencies overreact. The situation could have been resolved just as well (better, actually, by avoiding publicity) by one city employee making one phone call to one caver. 2) The allocation of costs is usually completely phony. It is extremely unlikely that the search for missing cavers in Airman's cost the public $20,000. How much gasoline did it take to power all those flashing red lights? They must be adding in the salaries of all the city emergency personnel who would have been being paid whether there was anything for them to do or not. The city goes way out of its way to cause itself problems or at least pretend to ("your tax dollars at work."). That's no basis for deciding public policy. -- Bill Mixon ---------------------------------------------- You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: [email protected] AMCS: [email protected] or [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
