Angelo <email> writes:

Thursday, May 15, we met with the Chief Ranger, Assistant Superintendent, and the Park Superintendent. The Super himself was not originally going to be there, and, although he didn't say anything about it, I have a feeling the letter campaign convinced him to attend. Thanks to everyone that wrote in.

Ultimately, it didn't go well. They listened to our arguments, but it became pretty obvious that their minds were already made up. It was very frustrating, in their minds, despite our history, we are an accident waiting to happen, they know what's best, and that's that. When we came up with proposals to deal with the main issue, safety for the beach goers, they shot them all down. We proposed to re-activate the local club, making this a requirement to fly, and that visitor pilots would have to fly with a club member to make sure all rules were followed. This was shot down as making flying "exclusive" to club members, even after I pointed out that flying is already exclusive to USHPA members, and that the club would be a USHPA chapter.

They simply don't want to deal with us. Rather than check pilots to make sure they are advanced/intermediate, it's easier for them to simply ban us from May to the second weekend in September. That's what it boils down to. Adding insult to injury, they now want to charge $25 for a permit, even though they will be doing LESS work than before! I did some background work on the Chief Ranger, Mike Bremer, and get the feeling he is fairly new to the Dunes. This would explain the sudden change in attitude toward hang gliding. Despite his claim to know about aviation, when he said that pilots soaring above the beach could fall down onto beach goers ("Mechanical failure can happen at anytime" - yeah, right) I knew we were dealing with a closed mindset.

To their credit, they did ask us if there was somewhere else in the park we could use for flying. Baldy is the only real option, tho. After it was clear they weren't going to lift the ban, we tried to get them to shorten it, Rusty pushing for May, and me pushing for May, June, and after Labor Day. My saying cold front days in June didn't attract a lot of beach goers was rejected out of hand (facts be damned) and the Assistant Super claimed there were still lots of beach goers after Labor Day.

We left with them saying they would consider giving us May back. Rusty felt we had a good chance of getting this, but even if we do, I don't consider that much of a concession. Frankly, I think they purposely made the restrictions over broad, with the thought that, if there was any protest, they could give us May back and look like they were compromising. We've already missed several good flying days this month. Call me cynical, but whatever they decide, I bet we don't hear about it until after Memorial Day.

Don't know what we will do next at this point. I'll contact the Foundation for Free Flight again, although I have to say that the contacts I've had so far haven't been very useful.

I think this shows that, if you don't own your site outright, no matter how entrenched you may seem, you could lose your site at anytime. 30 + years of flying at Baldy, and now...

Just got a call from the Assistant Superintendent. He said that even tho his numbers show higher usage in May, they are willing to see how it goes with us flying until the third weekend in May. Not up to the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, but the Sunday before. In other words, we picked up 18 days, 2 and a half weeks. Last weekend would have been the last we could fly, so we still can't fly until the second weekend in September.

This is even less than the minor concession I thought they would give us. I am underwhelmed. Now that we know their thoughts, time to start strategizing the next move.