Recent comments

It just never ends with Jarvis NPS. the Feefdom of our NPS. Hail to the Feef.

So all three of the people you spoke to are beggars? What do their cardboard signs say?

What about the rest of the townfolk?

At least a couple of Colorado towns have honest and sensible leadership that learned the hard way and refuse to repeat their mistake:

Still, both Durango and Boulder passed on hosting gigs for the Aug. 19-25 race next year.

Durango City Manager Ron LeBlanc said it was "a business decision." Durango budgeted $560,000 for the race - including $300,000 in sponsorship support, but not including wages for 620 police and security personnel. Yet the city saw less than half of the expected crowds for the start of the weeklong, 683-mile race.

"The incremental impact, with similar costs and resources, would likely be minimal," LeBlanc said. "How many additional countries or potential visitors would we reach? We'd need a similar commitment of resources. We still have T-shirts from this year."

But in some places, there are always enough fools who can be fooled easily by people waving dollars in front of them. Ah, well. I guess that's conservative socialism at work.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22011775/colorado-cities-bid-host-stages-2013-usa-pro

And I do know the towns that have hosted the event before are begging (and paying) for it to come back. Obviously they view the cost/benefit as quite attractive.

Documentation please.

How about if you provide us with a cost/benefit statement from the last race instead. We're also still waiting for proof that your "10s of thousands" numbers were not grossly inflated by the race organizers. Or would you approve of the idea that if the race were permitted, it would be allowed only if the organizers agreed to reimburse NPS for all expenses and damage that might be incurred? Want to bet that if that were proposed, the organizers would suddenly lose interest?

No matter what anyone else may try to provide, you will dance around it, twist it, and then ignore it. Not much point in wasting even more time. Might as well go try to reason with a rock in the creek outside my door.

Smile friend. It'll do you good.

Sure, if it would make you feel better, I'll amend that to substitue "any special use" for "any commercial use..." :-) My intent is the same, and I'd object to the Ride the Rockies event if it had the same impacts in terms of closing the park to "normal activities" for visitors.

The key in my opinion is whether a special event has a clear tie to the reason the park was established. For example, there will undoubtedly be some disruption of usual visitor activities at Gettysburg this summer during events for the 150th anniversary of the battle. The same could be said for 4th of July activities at Independence NHP. Those activities are directly related to the reason the park was established in the first place. Perhaps you can think of a park established primarily to promote a professional bike race, but none come to my mind.

And, at this point, I have other things to do. Think we've milked this one dry.

Mtliving, you've described exactly the concept of conservative socialism. Simply stated, it's socialize expenses, privatize profits.

Here in Ogden, the bike race a couple of years ago caused tremendous inconvenience. Beyond that, it cost taxpayers a huge amount of money. Attempts to find out exactly how much were only partially successful because of stonewalling by the former mayor's administration. It's safe to say, however, that it ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars. City street crews were used to put out orange barrels to block streets and park and recreation, and sanitation crews were used to place a flock of trash cans -- and then to fill them with litter later. Police were on overtime. Porta-potties were rented -- but apparently only a few were actually ever used. There was even one report of a paramedic unit and ambulance being seriously delayed on an emergency response. Those are only a few of the things that certainly cost taxpayers.

To my knowledge, there was never any reimbursement for city expenses. And, last I heard, no one had been able to get an answer from the city regarding any cost/benefit numbers. In fact, even the Chamber of Commerce finally admitted that probably less than thirty businesses had realized significant benefits. (While many others, such as my dentist, suffered serious losses.) The mayor was not running for re-election, but I'd be willing to bet that if he had been, the race would have contributed some serious challenges for his campaign. There was serious talk among many citizens of doing everything possible to either ban the race or try to disrupt it if it was forced upon the city.

There has been almost absolute silence since that experience. Although the race was held again last year. With much better planning and greater control imposed by the new city administration, the effect was much less and disruption was nowhere near as severe as it was the first time. The difference? The first race ran through and around main streets all over town. The second was restricted to outlying and less traveled streets.

Race organizers didn't like it one bit. But they had no choice because the new mayor stood his ground -- along with the city council. There has been no mention of another race. I don't know if that is the case at Colorado or not (I don't think I had heard of a previous race there until just recently) -- but is it possible that lessons learned after that first experience, led to the present resistance against future races? Also, how much taxpayer money was spent to enable that first race? And how much was repaid? Was that a case of socializing expenses and privatizing profits?

Seems to me that it's smart to learn from mistakes. If that is the case, isn't this a situation in which park officials should be congratulated for cutting government waste? It always mystifies my as to how some people can complain loudly against government spending and in another breath, yowl because it won't happen.

ec - as you well know as a frequent user of this site, we frequently use the term "park" in a generic sense to refer to any NPS unit; it simply allows for brevity.

Any yes, I'd object to any commercial use that had no connection to the purpose of the area and which prevented the general public from using the area for the activities which normally occur there. In this case, the "thousands of people" entering the monument during such a bike event would certainly would not have not the ability to travel thoughout the park and enjoy the trails or overlooks of their choice along the entire 23-mile scenic drive, accurately described as "one of the grandest scenic drives in the American West."

You complained previously about others being "elitist" in terms of who should be allowed in a park, but if this race were held and entry to the park was restricted as a result, the only ones able to get very far into the interior of the park would be those with the time and fitness for a long and steep trek on foot - or more likely, limited to those willing to ante up an added fee for a bus ride to only pre-planned destinations in the park.

Given those restrictions, I'd hardly call the park "open" to anyone not interested in the bike race.

Jim Burnett: there are a host of other roads where you can invite a huge crowd to watch a bike race.

Exactly. The national parks mission and purpose have nothing to do with holding sports events for private interests. If you want to ride your own bicycle on national park roads, fine, that's a great way to enjoy our national parks. But big sports events for special private interests? Nope. Find other venues -- they are plentiful.

If you read the proclamation of May 11, 1911, which established Colorado National Monument, it's clear that action was due to the area's "extraordinary" natural features. Would the scenery in Colorado National Monument be a nice backdrop for a bike race? Sure, as it would for an almost unlimited list of other activities.

Once you decide to close the park for a bike race, what reason is there to deny any other special event? How many closures of a park for special interests then become too many?

One of the problems is the attempt in this and many other cases to try to accommodate almost every possible kind of activity on every piece of public land. To do so fails to recognize that some areas, such as national parks, have unique qualities that provide opportunities for experiences that are not available anywhere else. You can't duplicate the unique views and experiences at the Grand Canyon, or the Tetons, or Colorado National Monument, anywhere else ...but there are a host of other roads where you can invite a huge crowd to watch a bike race.

The fact that a bike race would draw a big crowd isn't justification for holding it in a unique site such as Colorado National Monument. If you were to set up a couple of portable basketball goals in the main sanctuary of the National Cathedral and host an NBA all-stars free-throw shooting contest, you could probably fill the place up. That doesn't mean it would be a great idea.