[OR Patriot]

Good for the people of San Benito County!

Way to regain your constitutional rights of State Sovereignty!

[marron]

We need to start campaigning for the return of federal lands to the states and counties.

The federal government doesn’t need to be in the park business. Thats a local function. Park lands, monument lands, forest lands, BLM lands, should all be handed over to the states along with whatever staff is employed maintaining them. Its up to the state, then, what they do with them.

If it was up to me, I would then privatize BLM lands outright.

[littleharbour]

Kudos to the county board, but the real interesting part of the story is about the State of Utah exercising eminent domain to kick the feds off public property over which the feds have unconstitutionally exerted control. The feds operate as if every piece of land belongs to the federal government and that the States and individuals only occupy the land with federal approval. The land belongs to the people or the respective States - not the feds.

[RC2]

States need to take their land back. It belongs to the people of the State, not the Feds.

[HighlyOpinionated]

If you're not a member of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, I invite you to join. http://www.sharetrails.org

The BlueRibbon Coalition is a national non-profit organization dedicated to protecting responsible recreational access to public lands and waters. We want to keep your land open for use, whether you recreate on a mountain bike, snowmobile, motorcycle, personal watercraft, ATV, four-wheel drive, horse, or your hiking boots.

If there's a trail in existence, the Blue Ribbon Coalition wants it kept for use and not closed by some eco-friendly-nut who thinks he/she knows what's best for us. I don't know if this is at the website, but the idea originated when one of the guys wanted to take his disabled daughter up the 4WD-Road to an old mine where he'd often gone in his younger days. When he got to the roadhead, he found that the road had been closed because some enviro-mentalists had deemed the roadway a "protected stream" because when it rained, the water ran down the hill in the ruts of the roadway.

Yeah, let that sink in for a second. So, he and his buddies started the Blue Ribbon Coalition in order to keep extant trails available for recreation. At some point, a person has to say "stop, what you're doing is not benefiting anyone but yourself."

The groups that are part of the coalition have set aside their differences in order to work together. Most of their activity is in the West.

[marsh2]

Note, the California Streets and Highways Code §§ 940-941.2 places the general supervision, management, and control of county roads and highways - including closing such roads and removing and preventing encroachment of such roads and highways in the jurisdiction of the County.

The Original Text Of The Mining Act of 1866 States: “The right-of-way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public purposes, is hereby granted.”
Many local roads were established long before the Forest Reserves (National Forests); the Taylor Grazing Act and FLPMA terminated the offer. The Congress and the agencies have generally acquiesced to State law in determinining what constitutes an acceptance of the federal offer to grant the right of way.

I have been involved in fighting these federal land issues on the local level for more than twenty years. After the First Sagebrush rebellion, there was the Federal Lands Conference (Jim Catron, Karen Budd -Falon, Fred Kelly Grant), then the Win Back The West (Dick Carver, Wayne Hage, Don Amador, Stewards of the Range.) Dick took a bulldozer and forcefully opened a road back in the Shovel Brigade days. Currently, Grant has a group of counties throughout the west that are communicating and woorking together to assert influence through “coordination.”

In earlier movements to assert local leverage over land management decisions, we were always confronted with federal statements that federal law pre-empted local law. Since then, there have been a variety of court cases confirming a local jurisdiction and role concerning these lands. Such cases include CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMM’N v. GRANITE ROCK CO., 480 U.S. 572 (1987); Fort Leavenworth R. Co. v. Lowe, 114 U.S. 525; Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 404; Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246
U.S. 343; STATE OF COLORADO v. TOLL, 268 U.S. 228 (1925); Kelvey v. United States, 260 U.S. 353, 359; Robbins v. United States (C. C. A.) 284 F. 39. Recently, the State of California won a case asserting its rights under coordination in the federal Roadless designations.

This link leads to a copy of a resolution passed by our CA county in 2008 http://users.sisqtel.net/armstrng/coordination.htm It is a recitation of all the laws and regulations that have provisions in them concerning the County’s role in federal land management and other areas of joint jurisdiction. For instance, the Planning Rule applicable to the Forest Service, requires that they coordinate with County government to bring their plans into consitency with local ones.

Currently, the Obama administration is holding listening sessions to amend the federal land Planning Rule. We pretty much know they want to elminate the deference to elected County government currently provided in the law and reduce its input back to the same status as any other private party or special interest group. Another federal strategy is to coerce Counties into “Cooperating Agency” status which is a contract to fund full scientific participation in the Interdisciplinary Team when developing the NEPA document - prohibitively expensive. This effort is really joining the Counties together in their actions to assert local control.

Fred Kelly Grant gives workshops on how coordination works. See American Stewards of Liberty http://standingground.us/sg_sept_09/sg0908_standingground.html