A series of public hearings on the future of Yosemite National Park begin today at REI, the outdoor-sports retailer at 7810 N. Blackstone Ave. The session will be held from 4-8 p.m. The Fresno bee's editorial board discusses the importance of these hearings in an editorial thaty you can read by clicking here.
The National Park Service will hold eight other sessions locally and in Northern and Southern California.
"The debate over appropriate usage of the park has been played out many times, and now a court decision is pushing a renewed look at Yosemite's mission," the editorial says. "A federal judge has ordered the National Park Service to come up with a new plan to limit the crowds in Yosemite Valley. There's a lot at stake in this new plan, including how much public access will be allowed in the park."
Don't let the decisions be made without hearing from you.
The fact that they are putting on this charade means they already have their enviro plan and they just want political cover.Someone will be scribbling down notes furiously as if it matters and it will all be theater.
Well. at least they are holding public hearings away from up there. But (as it has been pointed out) it is not going to change anything. We have an acre of recreational property (up there) for more years than many beehive bloggers have lived. The park became less and less "public property" across the decades. I remember when the permanent home for one Forestry's VIP was built. Had it been placed outside the park boundaries, the cost would have been a fraction of its actual cost. The bureaucracy is gobbling up the goose that lays the golden eggs, the American Middle Class. I was not going to comment on the subject because I deemed it to be useless. Brian Murray's realistic assessment was the impetus for my post.