Dear Reader,
Sorry for the short notice but I've just learned this myself, through a press release.
Rocky Mountain National Park is having an 'Open House' to informally discuss visitation and other issues on Tuesday, December 6th, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm at the Museum of Estes Park.
The Museum is located at 200 4th Street, just off Highway 36th on your left as you arrive in Estes Park (if you're coming from somewhere on the Front Range).
Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the Park's leadership has declined to formally host an in-person public meeting to discuss a possible Timed Entry Reservation system for 2023. It continues to be evasive, dismissive, and selective in answering questions about the process used to exclude its actions from public scrutiny.
I encourage you to bring it up with them anyway at the Open House. Formal or not, you deserve the chance to speak these public servants in person, ask relevant questions, and get real answers. No one is above having to answer questions from the public.
The park is also hosting a virtual public meeting on Thursday, December 15, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. They say the intent of the webinar is 'to provide opportunities for the public to learn more about the purpose of the project.'
It may be your only chance to have your questions asked and answered live. To participate in the virtual meeting, you'll have to use the registration link below. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Teams Webinar. It is recommended to join the webinar via computer to have full use of the webinar tools that Teams provides.
Registration link: https://forms.office.com/g/UiRnA5kZsb
If you can't make the virtual meeting, a recording of the meeting will be posted on the park planning link below. The park will provide live captioning of the meetings.
Either way, it's important that you make a comment it to get your opposition to reservations on the record. Public comments for this stage are invited beginning December 12, 2022, through February 1, 2023. Comments can be submitted online beginning December 12, by visiting https://parkplanning.nps.gov/ROMO_DUVAS
Click on ‘Open for Comment’ on the left side of page to submit a comment.
Comments may also be sent to the following mailing address:
Superintendent Darla Sidles
Rocky Mountain National Park
1000 US Highway 36
Estes Park, CO 80517
One last thing. Check out this article on the trend of renting public lands back to the public for a fee, a fee that often doesn't even go the maintenance of public lands but to third parties in the private sector. It's outrageous, and possibly illegal. And it shows just how badly our public lands are being managed by a few elite administrators.
How sad. And how important it is to reverse this trend!
I said last time that it would be the last time you heard from me. But I wanted to make sure you didn't miss the chance to attend a meeting, in person or virtually. The Park didn't give us much notice. But you can still be heard!
All the best,
Dan