OHV Grant Open Houses
Posted: February 10, 2020 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: funding, grant Leave a commentSorry for the late, and short, notice but I’ve been out of state.
Tis the season for those applying for OHV grants through the CA State Parks – OHMVR Division to host open houses to ask for feedback to the grants they have written.
Here’s the rub. Those agencies are REQUIRED to ask for feedback to their grants. If the agency does not hold an open house, the grant will be denied. But, those agencies are under no requirement to change the grant regardless of the feedback from those attending the open houses.
This point was realized by me when the Lake Tahoe Basin Mgnt Unit wrote a grant for an OHV route that was mostly used by mountain bikers. The work proposed was to be done by a mountain bike trail building company. The volunteers cited in the grant was IMBA and TAMBA mountain bike groups. I rallied quite a negative response to the grant and the Basin said in a face to face meeting that they would not change the grant.
CA State Parks heard the negative feedback and the grant was denied on a technicality. Coinsident?
Anyway, the Tahoe National Fortest is holding an open house…
Open House Meeting: Tahoe National Forest Off-Highway Vehicle Grant Discussion
Nevada City, Calif. – The U.S. Forest Service is preparing an annual application to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division, to request funding for trail maintenance, law enforcement, education and safety, and potentially development of facilities, restoration and planning for off-highway vehicle (OHV) access.
On Thursday, February 13, 2020, the Forest Service will host an open house from 3:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. for individuals and organizations to provide input and review proposals for the application.
“I encourage anyone interested in the OHV program to drop by this informal open house to discuss their ideas on these proposals. Written comments are most helpful if sent by February 22,” stated Joe Chavez, Tahoe National Forest Trails Program Coordinator.
These annual OHV grants provide important funds for the Forest Service to develop and maintain trails and trailheads, repair winter storm damage and restore trailside environments, as well as provide patrolling and monitoring of these areas. When finalized, the grants will be available for public review and comment on the State of California’s website (http://ohv.parks.ca.gov) from March 3 – May 4, 2020.
Open House Meeting Location: Tahoe National Forest Headquarters, 631 Coyote St., Nevada City, CA 95959. Upstairs conference room (enter from upper parking lot in back of building).
Date and Time: Thursday – February 13, 2020. 3:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Questions, comments or letters can be directed to: Joe Chavez, Forest Trails Program Coordinator, Tahoe National Forest, 631 Coyote St., Nevada City, CA 95959; Email: joetchavez@fs.fed.us or (530) 478-6158.
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The Eldorado National Forest is also holding an open house…
| PLACERVILLE, Calif. – The public is invited to an Open House on Wednesday, February 12 from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM to discuss grant applications that the Eldorado National Forest will be submitting for Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) Cooperative Funds during the upcoming 2019/2020 grant cycle. The Forest is currently in the process of developing preliminary proposals to the California Off Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) Division with an emphasis on trail maintenance and repair; law enforcement across all four Ranger Districts; printing and distribution of Motor Vehicle Use Maps; and education. Public input is very helpful in the development of these proposals. All who are interested in the forest’s OHV Program are encouraged to attend the Open House. This OHV Grants Open House will be held at the Eldorado National Forest Supervisor’s Office, 100 Forni Road, Placerville, CA 95667. For directions, call (530) 622-5061. The Eldorado National Forest has been successful in receiving grants from the OHMVR Division in previous grant cycles. The grants have helped address trail repair and clearing of downed trees on over 300 miles of OHV routes, as well as law enforcement patrol on an additional 900 miles of native surface roads. These grants also make it possible to provide free Motor Vehicle Use Maps, as well as other planning, development, and restoration activities. Once completed, the preliminary grant applications will be available on the OHMVR website on Tuesday, March 3, 2020 through Monday, June 1, 2020 for review and comment. To review the grant applications submitted, go to http://olga.ohv.parks.ca.gov/egrams_ohmvr/user/home.aspx. The public may provide electronic comments to the Eldorado National Forest (applicant) by e-mailing Michelle Zuro-Kreimer at michelle.zuro-kreimer@usda.gov and carbon copying (cc) the OHMVR Division at ohvinfo@parks.ca.gov. Written comments, suggestions, or letters of support for the applications can be sent to Michelle Zuro-Kreimer, Eldorado National Forest, 100 Forni Road, Placerville, CA 95667 . For more information about recreation on the Eldorado National Forest, visit the forest website at www.fs.usda.gov/eldorado. ### |
Rubicon Oversight Committee (ROC) meeting minutes from RTF
Posted: January 28, 2020 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: El Dorado County, maintenance, Placer Leave a commentRather than re-post the minutes, I’m just going to post a link to the RTF Blog page. Check out the rest of the website while you’re there.
These meetings have been going on for years. More recently, Vickie Sanders, of El Dorado County Parks, has varied the meeting times so more people can attend. She has even moved the meeting locations so those out of the Placerville area can more easily attend.
Hopefully more meetings will be held in the South Lake Tahoe area (she’s already held some there). Tahoe City should be also be considered. This March 28th, there will be a meeting prior to the opening of the Reno Off-Road Motorsports Expo about all things Rubicon at the Reno Convention Center.
El Dorado County’s 2019 Annual Rubicon Report
Posted: January 25, 2020 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: El dorado, maintenance, Placer Leave a commentBelow is a link to the annual report put out by El Dorado County. Vickie Sanders has been at this for some time and has her act together as seen in this report.
Most of the items refer to the El Dorado County side of the trail but there are a few items about the Placer side. This will become more important in 2020 as the Placer side will be receiving more attention.
If you have any questions about this report or things going on on the El Dorado side of the trail contact Vickie Sanders. Vickie will be attending and speaking at the Rubicon Meeting I’m putting together for Saturday March 28th at 9am. It will be held at the Reno convention center the hour before the Reno Motorsports Expo opens at 10am.
The goal of the meeting is to let the users and volunteers know what will be happening on the Placer side of the Rubicon in 2020 and to answer any Rubicon related questions you may have. John Groom of the Tahoe National Forest should be there as well.
Bring your questions!
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Rubicon Ronin
Snow berm meeting at the Rubicon trailhead
Posted: December 20, 2019 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: Placer, snow Leave a commentWorking two fronts on the Rubicon these days: TNF and trail maintenance and Placer County and snow at the entrance.
For the record, I’ve been working with or fighting with Placer County over snow at the trailhead for more than three years. I’ve attended many meetings with former Supervisor Montgomery regarding this issue. Nothing came from those meetings.
Yesterday, a good group met at the trailhead: Placer County, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit and users. There were about eight of us.
My takeaways were that Placer County would move the winter parking rules sign closer to the road (Evergreen Way) and mount it higher. The plow operators would try and recognize the Rubicon as a driveway. Placer would try and reach out to the local snow removal contractors and the local homeowners association.
Placer County is going to try and get a local community meeting set up for January in Tahoe City to try and get everyone in the same room to work out solutions.
The commercial snow removal contractor that cleared the trail a number of times last winter was on hand. He offered to occasionally use his equipment to clear the berm as needed but not regularly.
Ideas that were also discussed were notching the berm so any ramp built would not interfere with traffic on Evergreen Way. Placer thought this might promote parking in that notch thus blocking the trail.
Other thoughts were to groom or plow the first part of the Rubicon, either to the quad parking area or all the way to the staging area. This would need a grant written to fund those ideas. Maybe in the next few years.
The entrance will probably get large 4×4 markers to let everyone know exactly where the trail starts. We are also discussing putting up a warning sign. I might have shared it here before:
This sign would be put in two places, about 200 yards up from Evergreen Way and on the trail just after leaving the staging area.
In the end I was happy at how things had moved forward, then Peter Kraatz sent out a late email last night.
Peter asked if we could “table” the use of commercial equipment until he could work out a few things as use of that equipment could bring complaints. This point was at the heart of getting and keeping access.
This morning, I fired off a email to the group that has been talking about this for weeks, Peter included. I told Peter “No”, I would not back off on the use of commercial equipment and that he had until the berm gets built up with snow fall and illegal dumping to get his act together.
Meeting w/ the TNF: 12/18/19
Posted: December 18, 2019 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: El dorado, grant, maintenance, Placer, TNF Leave a commentIn my last post, I really laid in to the Tahoe National Forest. I was not alone in my position. Those who held similar views gathered with me at the TNF offices this morning to converse with Joe Chavez.
It was a full room:
Joe Chavez – TNF head ranger
John Brokaw – TNF Truckee district OHV guy
Will Harris – TNF Archeologist / surveyor
Jack Sweeney – former El Dorado County Superviser
Bob Sweeney – President Jeepers Jamboree
Vickie Sanders – El Dorado County Parks & Trails
Justin (missed his last name) – El Dorado County Parks & Trails
Doug Barr – Lake Tahoe Hi-Lo’s Vice President
Callan McLaughlin – CA State Parks OHMVR
Brian Robertson – CA State Parks OHMVR
To their credit, the TNF acknowledged that they could have done a better job at reaching out to all the groups that have an interest in the maintenance of the Rubicon Trail.
Many expressed concerns over the dirt work done very late in the season. The TNF pushed back on this a few times noting they do it elsewhere and that a snow storm was coming in to harden the lose dirt berms and prevent erosion.
I think it was determined that such dirt work would not be done so late in the year due to proper planning and scheduling.
At the end of the day, I think everyone agreed that a better communications system needs to be in place moving forward. All agencies and groups will be in the loop. Formal open house meetings will take place prior to doing any work.
Hopefully, public meetings will take place to include the public in the planning process. We should be able to bring our concerns and thoughts about maintenance to the agencies responsible for getting it done.
One of the more surprising moments was when Jack Sweeney laid out the process that El Dorado County used to get an easement from the Forest Service. He said they stopped at the Placer County line only because they could not work in Placer County but that the argument for an easement within El Dorado carried through Placer County all the way to Lake Tahoe.
The other thing I learned was that there is a second document to follow the MOU. This second document should clear up the details as the MOU was very vague.
Concerns linger about who can and should write grants for the Rubicon Trail. The CA State Parks OHMVR Division recognizes that an agency can write a grant for the entire length of the trail. But, no two agencies can write a grant for the same section of OHV trail. So the El Dorado County and the TNF can not BOTH write grants for the same section of trail. All of the agencies will need to coordinate their grant requests so they don’t all get thrown out.
It was a good start at laying the ground work for getting all the agencies together, on the same page for future maintenance.
Tomorrow, there is a meeting with Placer County at the eastern trailhead to discuss the snow berm, illegal snow dumping and how Placer’s plowing adds to that berm.
Stay tuned…
The 'Other' Rubicon 