Public Meeting

Binder said:

Well I just did some more research and according to Snohomish county the DNR only owns about 1500 acres of the entire Reiter area. Where they ever came up with the 10,000 acres number, who knows.

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maybe thats a big part of the downsizing?

Pook said:

maybe thats a big part of the downsizing?

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I'm sure it has much to do with all of the motorized use trails being up top and the lower area closing as the DNR only owns a very small piece down low......
Something funny....After the meeting before I was talking to Mark he was expaning to another guy about how great the rock face was and he would like to in the future incorporate the obstacle into the system. I pointed out to him that state parks owns it. He replied that he didn't think state parks would open up their land to motorized use which is probably true....Wouldn't you think they would have been in contact with state parks and other neighboring land owners before now? Especially being they plan to incorporate land owned by others into the trail system.

Sorry I wasnt able to attend this "meeting" But just from reading all of these posts I will give you my take on it anyway. This started as a focus group meeting with the "represenitives" invited. Word got out and it turned into a free for lynch mob. Instead of just cancling the meeting the DNR gave you a "public meeting". They wernt there to give you any information or even answer your questions. They were there to gather information. The DNR or any agency is NOT going to make any decissions at such a meeting or give you any firm answers. They will take all of the information they gathered and go study it for a while and then have a meeting with the represenitives to come up with a game plan. I know some of you have issues with the represenitives in place but sorry thats your own fault for not being involved at this level. If you want to have a impact then I strongly suggest that you form or join a strong group and learn to work as one strong group and quit the bikkering. Its the only way your going to get anything positive done. Just my 2 cents based on 30 odd years of doing this so take it or leave it:awesomework:

Binder said:

I'm sure it has much to do with all of the motorized use trails being up top and the lower area closing as the DNR only owns a very small piece down low......
Something funny....After the meeting before I was talking to Mark he was expaning to another guy about how great the rock face was and he would like to in the future incorporate the obstacle into the system. I pointed out to him that state parks owns it. He replied that he didn't think state parks would open up their land to motorized use which is probably true....Wouldn't you think they would have been in contact with state parks and other neighboring land owners before now? Especially being they plan to incorporate land owned by others into the trail system.

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I don't recall them saying 10,000 of DNR land but 10,000 of current ORV used land. As for the spurts of state park land--I am sure thats just land they are holding onto for trade off. They did that back when they got the land that the index lookout sits on--from highway 2 up- and behind the town of index. Regardless state parts has ZERO motorized use..

pokey said:

Daja vue :booo:

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The DNR brought part of that on themselves for the manner in which they communicated it.

Now, stop fuming and listen. :flipoff:

They have stated they are closing Reiter on Nov 2 until it gets fixed. Now, here is what gets people upset:

1) There is no open date
2) The DNR says certain objectives must be met but they have thus far not communicated what those are publicly.
3) From what I have gathered the DNR has not decided upon what those objectives are going to be yet.

So, they closed an area off stating it must be fixed with not even a preliminary plan of how to go about fixing it. Emotionally - that sounds a lot like a defacto permanent closure to me.

crash said:

I don't recall them saying 10,000 of DNR land but 10,000 of current ORV used land. As for the spurts of state park land--I am sure thats just land they are holding onto for trade off. They did that back when they got the land that the index lookout sits on--from highway 2 up- and behind the town of index. Regardless state parts has ZERO motorized use..

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It's not just state parks...Theres BLM, state forest, Private, etc.....I don't believe the DNR is planning to build motorized trails on land they don't use. I believe the whole recreational activities commitee (or whatever it's called) has far less impact on happenings then many think. Seems as though the DNR hasn't done any real research behind the map of the proposed motorized use area....They're just going through the motions and in the end they will build it the way they want.

Binder said:

It's not just state parks...Theres BLM, state forest, Private, etc.....I don't believe the DNR is planning to build motorized trails on land they don't use. I believe the whole recreational activities commitee (or whatever it's called) has far less impact on happenings then many think. Seems as though the DNR hasn't done any real research behind the map of the proposed motorized use area....They're just going through the motions and in the end they will build it the way they want.

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So much of this depends on who the DNR land manager is representing the area.

We've had some come through where all we did during their tenure was argue to keep what we had as much as we could argue without straining relationships too bad.

Then we've had others come through that said, "hell ya, that sounds like a great idea!"

Also the DNR does not own any land--they just manage it. So in retrospect that could easily be any state owned land.

crash said:

Also the DNR does not own any land--they just manage it. So in retrospect that could easily be any state owned land.

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Like I wrote...According to Snohomish county they own it. I know they also sometimes make deals to manage lands owned by others but when I specifically asked Mark this he said no deals were made.

For clarification the DNR does own land. They also lease it out to private partys....It's all on their web site.

Here is a way do see who actually owns it if ya are interested...
http://gis.co.snohomish.wa.us/maps/property/index.htm
click "click here to open SCOPI"

well here is the email i just recieved from them enjoy.




Many of you may have attended last night

Binder said:

Well I just did some more research and according to Snohomish county the DNR only owns about 1500 acres of the entire Reiter area. Where they ever came up with the 10,000 acres number, who knows.

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What I think may be happening here is the DNR is concidering all state trust land as theirs to manage. Seems strange that mark didn't point this out when I talked to him though.

Binder said:

What I think may be happening here is the DNR is concidering all state trust land as theirs to manage. Seems strange that mark didn't point this out when I talked to him though.

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How do we know they have not been managing it all along?

crash said:

How do we know they have not been managing it all along?

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Mark told me they were not. Can't confirm if this is true.

Binder said:

Mark told me they were not. Can't confirm if this is true.

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Now was mark the main speaker?

crash said:

Now was mark the main speaker?

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Yes.

Binder said:

Yes.

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I can see it then. He is probably like any lead guy with managers below him (not any different than the private secotor) and doesn't know all the ins and outs. He probably should have said "I don't know" IMO.... Just leads to more mis information.

Just did some quick math off of the Reiter trails map. I converted the outlined area into miles, based off the scale on the map,then square feet. Then divided that figure by 43,560 which is the number of square feet in an acre.
Came up with 1582 acres within the outlined area which covers most of the trails at Reiter minus Isabel. This might give you an idea of how large an area 1000 acres is. You can put alot of trails on 1000 acres depending on all the variables the DNR comes up. If you average the number of miles per trail at Reiter minus Isabel and the Powerline trails, each trail is only a little over one half of a mile. If you had a perfect 1000 acre square it would be 1.25 miles long on each side or 1.56 square miles.
I have a headache now maybe someone should check my math!
A thousand acres is stll a good sized piece of land and most importantly it is the land we have to deal with, there is no looking back.

Does anyone have a map that shows that the "old" Reiter ORV area was in fact 10,000 acres? By looking at the map, it does not seem like that big of an area. I could be wrong.