To the officers and members of SWR,
Thank you Stan and very well said!!!!! My feelings exactly and I am in total
agreement. For too long the minority have ruled SWR. It is time to grow up and
give the majority a voice. I know for a fact that NSS, TSA, TCMA have all gone
to electronic ballet in elections with online candidate profiles.
Karen Perry
________________________________
From: Stan Allison <stanalli...@netscape.net>
To: s...@caver.net
Sent: Tuesday, June 3, 2014 10:08 PM
Subject: Re: [SWR] SWR BLM FOIA a mistake
Hi Steve and Evelyn,
Thank you for your responses. You are correct that I don't attend SWR regional
meetings, partially because I work weekends and partially because I would
rather be caving, hiking or backpacking! :) However I think that it is possible
that the consensus of the small number of cavers who attend the SWR regionals
may differ from the consensus of the approximately 150 members of the SWR. As
Evelyn pointed out, the regionals have poor attendance. The small group that
attends regionals may or may not represent the make-up of the entirety of the
SWR. There are many other SWR cavers like myself who are unable to attend SWR
regional meetings, but still might like to participate in major decisions such
as the BLM FOIA and the creation of a federal liason. If either of you are
interested, perhaps you could bring up the idea at the upcoming regional about
having the SWR enter the digital age and have officer elections and other
important events done electronically
so that all members can participate whether they can attend regionals and
winter technicals or not.
While only a few people have spoken out on the discussion board against the SWR
BLM FOIA, once again, that may not represent the thoughts of the membership as
a whole. Many folks don't actively participate in the discussion board and some
folks might feel intimidated to speak their minds if they disagree with what
may correctly or incorrectly be perceived as a strongly held majority
viewpoint. Others may be smarter than myself and just not want to enter the
fray! :)
The SWR BLM FOIA is out of the bag and while we disagree about whether it will
accomplish the goals of the SWR or not, I hope that this issue will prompt the
officers of the SWR to create a more democratic and representative organization
in the future. I would also hope that in the future, if some particularly
significant and controversial action is being debated that the SWR officers
will use Article VI Section 2 of the SWR Constitution to declare a special
meeting and have that meeting in a digital fashion so that all members can
participate whether they can physically make it to the meeting or not.
I hope that everyone who attends the Black Range SWR will have a great time and
I look forward to seeing Steve on the 17th. Good caving to all.
Stan
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Peerman <gypca...@comcast.net>
To: Stan Allison <stanalli...@netscape.net>
Sent: Sat, May 31, 2014 7:35 am
Subject: Re: [SWR] SWR BLM FOIA a mistake
Stan,
You are certainly entitled to your opinion and there are aspects of the way
that this has evolved that I wish had happened differently. However, I would
like to respond to some of your concerns.
On May 30, 2014, at 8:22 PM, Stan Allison wrote:
Southwestern Cavers,
>
>
>I am writing to you as a Southwestern Region member and as a
caver who leads and participates in exploration, survey and cartography
projects as well as scientific projects and recreational caving on BLM managed
lands. I want to express my disappointment in both the Southwestern Region
officers
submitting a FOIA request to the BLM and the manner in which it was submitted
without consulting with the SWR membership until after the FOIA had been
submitted.
At the last regional meeting, on June 12, there was a general consensus of
those present that "something should be done" in regards to the BLM's closure
of the caves, but the exact nature of what should be done was not clear.
Regional Chair Meg Sorensen was directed by the membership to write a letter to
BLM asking what the management plan was for the caves that were closed under
the Federal Register. However she found herself in a difficult position, as an
employee of the USFS, dealing with cave management issues herself. She had a
conflict of interest, as you yourself have as well. This letter from her had
been requested by the SWR membership as early as September, 2013, but had not
been done (and, to my knowledge, has still not been done).
In your position at Carlsbad Caverns, I think you may be somewhat shielded from
the general feeling of cavers in the region. (How many regional meetings have
you attended in the last x years? I know, your work schedule makes it
difficult to attend regularly.) For the most part, the active cavers of the
region feel that the BLM has overstepped its authority in closing the caves,
since the expiration of the Federal Register notice. They don't believe there
is sufficient reason for closing the caves, and that the closure has been done
contrary to the BLM's own policies. However, the expression of these concerns
to BLM has fallen on deaf ears, so the FOIA request is an effort to get their
attention.
>I believe that the FOIA request is a bad idea for the following
reasons:
> * I don’t think that this FOIA will result in any change of
management or closures of BLM caves. Reviewing the hundreds to thousands of BLM
WNS related emails and correspondence will probably take tens to hundreds of
hours and will probably not reveal anything that we don’t already know. Even if
we do learn something new, I doubt that it will be substantive enough to
require the BLM to make any significant changes in cave management policies.
I certainly hope you are wrong about this. The BLM, as a federal agency, MUST
be responsive to the public. They don't have to agree with our concerns, but
they must listen to them and they must justify their actions.
* Submitting a FOIA request to the BLM is the same tactic that
the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) used with the BLM. I don’t agree with
the CBD’s tactics in dealing with WNS and federal agencies and in particular
don’t want to see the SWR emulating the CBD’s tactics. I have heard SWR members
and officers complain about the CBD tactics in
dealing with WNS and am surprised that we are now following in their footsteps.
The submission of a FOIA request should not be viewed negatively. I wish that
the BLM had been more open and responsive to this point, but they were not. (I
can't tell you how many e-mails to various folks in BLM about the closure issue
have gone unanswered.) What makes the CBD so repulsive is their threats of
lawsuit.
* Responding to this FOIA will take BLM cave managers away
from their duties of managing caves and will mean that our tax dollars spend
more time on responding to a frivolous FOIA request rather than managing caves
and karst. I agree, and I wish it had not come to this. But it did.
* The SWR has a long history of cooperating and working with
the BLM. While we certainly don’t always agree with everything that the BLM has
done, I think that this FOIA request will damage the SWR BLM relationship and
cause more harm than good. I don’t believe that the FOIA request will further
the goals of the SWR.
Back in the '90s, the Fee Demo program came about. Both the BLM and the USFS
made plans to collect fees for caving. The SWR fought both agencies and
convinced both to drop their plans. The meetings were often quite contentious,
but at least there was a dialog. There has not even been a dialog in the
closure issue. At any rate, after the dust settled from the Fee Demo debacle,
the relationship between the SWR and both agencies was stronger than ever. The
HGRP was a direct result of the confrontation between the SWR and the USFS.
>I am also disappointed with the SWR officers in not
consulting with the membership before creating a new Federal Liaison position
and submitting a FOIA to the BLM. It appears that a false sense of urgency was
created in order to rush the process along without consulting the membership. I
would also hope that a SWR Federal Liaison would work to maintain and build the
SWR/BLM relationship rather than damaging our relationship. I think that the
SWRofficers have made a mistake in
creating and filling a Federal liaison position without consulting with the
membership and that submitting a SWRFOIArequest to the BLMwithout consulting
with the membership was also a mistake. I’mhopeful that the SWR’spast record
of excellent cooperation with the BLMin cave management, science, survey, bat
monitoring, exploration, cartography, education, photography, restoration and
recreational caving will help us maintain a good working relationship with the
BLMin the future despite this recent blunder.
I disagree that it was a blunder. It was a consequence of actions that had
occurred over a considerable amount of time. It was also a consequence of SWR
Chair Meg Sorensen's conflict of interest. She could not effectively address
this issue. By appointing Stephen Fleming as a Federal Liaison, the SWR
membership could have an effective spokesman.
>
>
>Thank you for considering my concerns and good caving to all
of you.
We all have our concerns and we should always feel free to share them. The
next SWR meeting is coming up in a few weeks (June 14-15) in the Black Range.
I know you'll be caving in FSC but I hope lots of cavers will attend the
regional and voice their concerns about this issue.
I'm planning on being at the Field House on the 17th when your trip comes out.
Maybe there will be some response from the BLM to discuss at that point.
>
>
>Stan Allison _______________________________________________
>SWR mailing list
>s...@caver.net
>http://lists.caver.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swr
>_______________________________________________
>This list is provided free as a courtesy of CAVERNET
Steve Peerman
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't
do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe
harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
attributed to Mark Twain, but no record exists of his having written this.
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