The Conference Call is confirmed. Nov. 18, Tuesday at 1pm Calif. time. Any visitors that want to listen in can do so by going to the BLM office in El Centro. The purpose for the call is a report from the BLM on the Halloween Weekend.

I will be checking on other locations that people can go to listen.

Vicki,

No agenda recieved as yet. As you say, there are more issues at hand, I expect many to be discussed.

Here is a Public Report that will be discussed during the Conference Call. This provides some answers, but not everything. This is all we have received from the BLM so far. I will post anyting else we receive.

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Halloween 2003 Imperial Dunes Closeout Report



Attendance:

62,000 estimated

Fee Compliance:

The fee compliance system went well. There were some problems with the fee machines. One was stolen and several ran out of passes or change.

Vendor fee compliance also went well.

Public Information:

An emergency news release was sent out after the theft of a fee machine. It was sent to:

Yuma Sun
Imperial Valley Press
San Diego Tribune
Riverside Press Enterprise

Posted reward flyers for information regarding the theft of the fee machine at businesses and vendors.

News media contacts:

Yuma Daily Sun
KYMA – TV Yuma, did a news segment but did not contact BLM.
Intersection Magazine – London


Staffing:

Law enforcement personnel - 83

EMS personnel - 28

VSS – 20

Central Parking – 7

Volunteers – 11

Incident Command staff was adequate.




Cost:

The estimated cost is $200,000 plus the cost of Imperial County Sheriff.

Statistics:

Medical Responses:

Total - 88

Life flights – 2

1 confirmed fatality

Dune Buggy rescues – 7

Law enforcement citations:

Total – 754 (156 for no fee compliance)

Arrests:

Total - 27

Law enforcement fee compliance team was very effective.

Some tickets were written for camping in closed areas and one reported camper in the wilderness area, they could not be found.


Yuha Desert Area

The Yuha Desert Area was fairly quiet with only about 33% of normal activity.

There were no Medicals and only 4 citations.

There was good compliance for camping in authorized camp sites.



Wilderness Areas:

The areas were fairly clean and there was only one incident in the Northern Algodones Desert Wilderness Area.

Communication

The new BLM Communications trailer worked well and successfully linked into the radio system that the public supported. This will save money in the future by not having to bring down a trailer from the CDD.



THANKSGIVING 2003 INCIDENT ACTION PLAN:

The plan for the Thanksgiving Weekend will be basically the same as the Halloween Incident with an increase in Law Enforcement and Medical coverage. Additionally, the El Centro Hospital is going to send a medical team of a Doctor, Nurse, and Medical Tech to man the ranger station medical room. The Law Enforcement Officers will be refining the tactics used in the dunes.

Thanks Glenn.

I'm working on getting out there by 1:00 so keep your fingers crossed.

In case I miss the public comment part though, please check on something else for me.

There are burned out hulks of vehicles that have been out there for over a month in one case. There's a trailer on Gecko and I think it's a truck in the dunes (a definite safety hazard). The BLM has been asked about these pieces and their response has been that they don't have any tow vehicles for getting them out of there.

That's a rather lame excuse, since there are lots of towing companies around that would do nicely. In addition, there's a duning population that must have at least one person willing to help with this problem.

They just don't want to bother.

Someone told me yesterday that they're most likely just leaving them there for the January cleanup. Please make sure this is not the case.

Vicki

Please bring up the issue of people leaving their motorhomes and/or trailers on the pads and gampgrounds off Gecko road. We left Roadrunner yesterday and probably 50% of the rigs that are taking up space had no one around for the whole week we were there and I know they will still be there come Thanksgiving. Some of these rigs will have been there for over 21 days by the end of Thanksgiving week.

Vicki-
Did you make it for the call?

Well I'm sure Glenn will give us an update....

I'm sure he will. I also spoke to Chuck (RadRat) just minutes before the meeting and he promised an update also.

Vicki

Hey All,

Sorry I didn't get on here earlier today. Here's a brief run through:

Discussed ISDRA Survey - needs some more work, hope to be ready for dune users by end of year (2003).

BLM estimated compliance to be at 60% to 80%. This is based on observations of "on the ground employees". We hope to have accounting statements soon that will detail compliance.

Computers from damaged fee machines have been recovered. Special software is needed to retrieve CC info from computer. This should ease concerns by those that used credit cards to purchase passes. CC#'s should be OK.

Imperial County Sheriffs Office has not received funding from OHMVR commission, review of grant could be in 2 weeks.

Citations have been issued for reserving camp spots and exceeding 14-day rule. They are enforcing these laws when time permits. Obviously if an important law enforcement issues arrises, they will handle that first. No numbers reported.

- Bob Zimmer defined an "occupied" camp site as one that has someone there each day. Otherwise it could be considered "abandoned". He also said that there would have to be a "someone" for each rig or camp site. Not one person watching several rigs. Otherwise, this would be "saving spots".

- LEO's are being more tolerant of 10' from pavement parking rule.

Burned and abandoned vehicles - BLM is trying to find the owner of the burnt RV (?) on Gecko before towing it out, but they are about to that stage. An abandoned truck was mentioned. Bob Zimmer didn't know about it. If they have the location they tow them out ASAP. When ever possible they will try to locate the owner first before towing. That doesn't always work. VIN was gone from an abandoned vehicle recently towed from dunes.

Fees collected since September - Estimated at > $400,000. BLM waiting on accounting from Central Parking. Report is due on the 20th for the previous month. October period report coming soon. Ledger reports being worked on now.

- Central parking has 3 vendors selling passes. BLM did not have list handy, will be sent to TRT members.

- No Internet sales yet. Central Parking hopes to have passes available on-line by 12/1/03.

Vendors pre-paid fees - $56,000 received to date.

- Special note. There is no designated Vendor Area at Buttercup. They can set up anywhere as long as it is not on asphalt, or cause an interference issue with other users.

That's it for now. I will post more as details become available.

Vicki,
Why doesnt D.U.N.E.R.S. figure a way to get those burned vehichles out of the desert. This would probably impress the hell out of the blm. good way for you to get press as well????

Actually, DUNERS pretty much figures the BLM is just waiting for January 17th and the problem will be solved. Cynical? Sure, but also very likely.

John, many DUNERS members have asked about those abandoned vehicles and we have been told a variety of stories. Once we were told the trailer had to stay out there due to an insurance investigation. And we were told (by one of Zimmer's officers) that they would remove the vehicle in the dunes, except they don't have a tow vehicle so do it with. Guess they don't know how to call information for a two service. Made me wonder if they were just going to wait until someone was injured because of it... more press coverage that way.

Certainly DUNERS could step up and get those items removed but aren't you missing the point? First, why is Zimmer not aware of the one in the dunes? Doesn't he patrol his territory? Maybe not, but why haven't his officers discussed it with him? Heck, even the non-LEOs at the ranger station knew about it... were they keeping from him for some reason?

But expecting the BLM to do their job is just too much I guess. Much better to enable ineptness than to demand something better.

Vicki

I went to Roadrunner last weekend and couldn't get on the pavement but I did park on the dirt. While walking around the circle, I also saw many rigs parked and no one was around. Trailers with no tow vehicles, MH's parked and nothing around. I walked during the evening and still no one around, no lights on, no campfires, no nothing.
This crap has to stop. Then the idiots with miles of yellow tape was also a problem. I for one hope the BLM does something about these rigs that people left for a couple of weeks waiting for Thanksgiving. I saw some girls moving trailers and later heard that all of their water had been drained while storing the trailers at RR. I heard that last year, someone spray painted abandoned rigs.

Not right but I can understnd the frustration.

Rules are rules. No saving space. Maybe he didnt get a spot he wanted because some a hole left his crap there for 2 weeks?????? Vicki you are the first person to speak up on a rule YOU dont like why should you have a problem with someone else who is upset with a rule?

Vicki i agree with you 100% that a person SHOULD NOT be messing with someone else stuff. Very sad indeed but it goes back to the blm they have to enforce all of the rules that we already have.

I would be curious to see what kind of priority calls the blm has mon - thur? Should be plenty of time to look into these issues also.

I forgot to mention something about Bob Zimmer and "saving spaces."

Last year while I was visiting a friend's camp a couple men in uniform came up. I'm almost positive one of them was Zimmer himself. Apparently someone had complained that my friend's camp was too big and wanted the "saving spaces" rule enforced. He was pretty obnoxious about it. Zimmer/man in uniform explained to my friend that saving spaces was against the rules so he would have to remove the cones and then he explained that there is no rule against parking your tow rig far enough away from your sleeping rig so as to allow freedom of movement. So my friend and his friends moved their trucks into the spaces. Zimmer/man in uniform made it clear to the complainer that there was absolutely no indication that spaces were being saved. Complainer was upset but could do nothing.

By the way, during this exchange Zimmer/man in uniform was also aware that there were several rigs whose owners were not present... one couple had gone to play in town, one had just left for a long visit at the hot springs. They had left their keys, of course, and trusted their friends to keep an eye on things while they were gone.

Have the rules changed or has someone forgotten this (witnessed) encounter?

Vicki

Don't mind me, but I have an observation...

It's funny how the Demo Fee has massive LEO presence, complete with road blocks and beatings.... Obviously a high priority law enforcement issue...

Yet, the enforcement of parking along Gecko road, which has had issues of theft, violence, and vandalism associated with it, not to mention the potential for full scale riot as people show up to camp only to find that there is "no room at the inn" is to be considered "less important"...

Well here's a little factoid from yesterday's call that I found particularly disturbing...

At the beginning of the call it was mentioned that 8,000 season passes had been created and all 8,000 had been sold. More are being printed.

Then later in the call when the BLM started talking about money, they said they had made something like $450,000 so far this year, which was not even close to what they were projecting and claiming that if the trend continues we will be badly under budget.

Someone, thinking quickly, did the math in their head and pointed out that $90 multiplied by 8,000 was $720,000 and by the way, how many weekly passes have been sold?

The answer was, they did not know how many weekly passes had been sold since they had not yet received the report from U-Park. They had no explanation for the $450k versus $720k.

So. We have the BLM claiming poverty without actually knowing how much money has been brought in.

We have the BLM claiming somewhere around $450,000 has been brought in within minutes of saying they'd sold $720,000 worth of passes.

Tell me we aren't being set up.

By the way, Glenn will have to correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe it was TRT Chairman Jerry Seaver who pointed out the BLM's mistakes and put them on the hot seat. WAY TO GO JERRY woooooo hoooooo!

Vicki

One other thing about visitor counts.

Although being assured they would not be, the BLM is indeed relying on the old "best guess" counting system from last year.

That means they use the axle counters and multiply the figure by 3.5 (users per vehicle) then deduct a certain amount for guess-timated return visits (run into town and back) and that's the figure they come up with.

So much for ensuring accuracy and therefore accurante compliance figures.

Vicki

Thats a great cvatch on the # of passes sold. Way to go !

Vicki is correct in saying that TRT Chairman Jerry Seaver was the one who brought up the difference in passes sold vs revenue estimate. Several TRT members chimed in almost immediately with the same "wait a minute".

Keep in mind that this is an estimate as the accounting statement has not be received from Central Parking, nor has it been reviewed by the BLM and made ready for the Ledger Report. CP's report is due on the 20th of the month following. (November 20 for October activity.)

After a considerable amount of time spent discussing this, the TRT decided that it was necessary to allow more time for the BLM to receive the accounting from CP, and to review, complete, & release the Ledger Report. While it was understandable for the October activity, several of us had serious concerns that we did not have an accurate accounting report for September.

As far as the abandoned truck in the dunes, as no specific location was given, Bob Zimmer said he did not know about that particular one. He didn't say he didn't know about any, in fact he commented on what they normally do. I can not say whether it was an intentional inaccurate answer or not. I can only go by what I heard in the meeting and that was what I heard.

Citations for saving spaces - No, Bob Zimmer did not quote the code they were using, but did say that they have been successful in enforcement.

14-day camping - BLM is enforcing this, and they are keeping an eye on it. I'm paraphrasing here: The task to watch and track all the camp sites is a tough one that takes time to gather proof. I imagine it is a little different than scribing a chaulk mark on a tire/pavement like a city cop would do for a parked car.

I'll read through the post again tonight and see if I missed anything. If I did, let me know.