Is anyone listening?

The Pathfinder dated Aug. 30, 2018 certainly contained a great deal of controversial opinions on a variety of subjects. Those that seemed to generate the most emotion had to do with the petition regarding the way OUR ranger district is being run.

We had just gone through an incredibly bad year of a fire that nearly cost us the very town we call home, followed by an incredibly good or bad snow year (depending on your winter activities).

The beginning of our tourist season found that approximately 30 percent of the campsites available for our visitors would not be available for occupancy. Occupancy for Seeley Lake means income to be able to survive through the upcoming winter. Yes, emotions are running high. Reasons and explanations were given and all was good? I think not because if the people on that side would have talked to the people on this side, both sides would have known all is not well in our paradise. Because we all live in our own little sequestered groups we are pretty secure in the fact that we are right and they are wrong.

The problem could be easily solved if there were only two groups to bring to the table--- the problem seems to be that there is a third party involved and as with all difficulties the chances of an amicable solution becomes more difficult. That third party is the largest land MANAGER, not owner, in our area. Now we have decisions being made about our forests by a bureaucracy of thousands located in such local areas as Washington, D.C. Still our problem is not insurmountable if that bureaucracy were to be responsive to ALL of the people in OUR little hamlet. Is this a local problem or a bureaucratic problem?

No, this is not a case of misogyny gone wild, nor is it a case of wanting to harm another’s career, it appears to be an incredible amount of frustration with a system that appears for all intents and purposes to be ignoring a significant part of the area’s residents. The US Forrest Service no longer manages OUR land for us, they have taken ownership, and we are often unwelcome guests in ‘their’ forests. The function of a bureaucracy is not to accomplish, but to grow.

I ask the question again, is the problem a local one or systemic in the USFS.