4Wheel Parts Partners with BlueRibbon Coalition

[sami]

I'd love to see a "middle ground" established where deep pocketed group like SUWA, who claim to be 'environmentalists', put their money into education, trail/land maintenance, and beefed up management including LEO patrol.. Establish laws that put heavy fines on users caught blatantly driving off trail.. Big heavy fines, and impound their equipment on their dime.

Point is, there are users who wouldn't mind seeing these improvements. Who has the money that could pull it off? Groups like SUWA. That's preservation and management if I've ever seen it. Rather than their money getting tied up in court battles, put it in the ground.

I agree with a middle ground. It takes more than mentioning it on an online forum though. First step for a 'middle ground' as far as Utah is concerned would have to come from SUWA.. Their money ultimately has control, as they have bullied counties and locals for years.

 

[LadyRed]

Here's some of the things BRC spends money on... http://www.sharetrails.org/magazine/article.php?legal=1&nonav=1

Also as a non profit here is where BRC stands regarding political office:

As a 501(c)(3) organization, The BlueRibbon Coalition has enacted the following policy: BlueRibbon Coalition, Inc. does not endorse or oppose any political candidates, donate or contribute to any political candidate's campaign, participate or engage in political fundraising events, distribute statements for or against particular political candidates, nor engage in any other activity that may constitute favoring or opposing a political candidate.

Protecting access to our public lands and promoting responsible use of those lands is what BRC is about. Read mission statement: http://www.sharetrails.org/mission_vision_values/

Several of us that are members of BRC do individual trail clean ups etc. and help others establish "friends of" type groups that actively participate in trail restoration and clean ups...for example the "Friends of the Rubicon" has been around for several years now and has had an awesome impact on that particular trail. There are several other groups that have been established with the help and backing of BRC that are out there making a difference as well. Thanks to Del and his leadership training courses (educating the user) these groups continue to grow.

If more people took the time to really read what is clearly stated on the website regarding route designation and the exhaustive effort that team members from BRC have worked tirelessly on, Wilderness and Back Country Designation etc. www.sharetrails.org there wouldn't be so much bashing going on...it's all there, go read it.

 

[robert j. yates]

I'm still trying to figure out why some folks here actually own trucks and burn carbon based fuel while living in a house, using electricity and buying their prepackaged food at a grocery store.

Good grief...this is a motorized access board. I don't think anybody here is a yay-hoo but you would think after reading some of these posts that any OHV related group and folks belonging to them were behind the wanton rape and pillage of the land.

 

[teotwaki]

SUWA is run by crooks!

This information I posted in another thread is worth repeating here. The pro-Wilderness group SUWA is riddled with criminal characters and questionable sources of funding..

Feds bring charges against SUWA trustee's company
Swiss billionaire a huge donor to wilderness causes.
By Patty Henetz

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 11/12/2009 11:09:48 AM MST


A Swiss billionaire who in July stepped down as the chairman of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance board of directors is directly involved in a federal criminal prosecution in Pennsylvania of a company accused of illegal medical testing that led to three deaths.

Hansjörg Wyss, who joined the SUWA board in 1996 and has been a major donor to several conservation groups in the West, is the third SUWA board member in two years to run afoul of the Justice Department.

Wyss hasn't been involved in the organization's day-to-day wilderness advocacy, SUWA supporters and a persistent critic acknowledge. But the prosecution of his company could place SUWA and a new panel recently established by Gov. Gary Herbert in a political quagmire the governor wants to escape.

In 2008, Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, and 44 other Utah lawmakers wrote a letter to Wyss demanding details of any financial dealings with board treasurer Mark Ristow and board member Bert Fingerhut who in 2007 pleaded guilty to separate federal charges of making millions of illegal dollars by circumventing banking regulations. Ristow was sentenced to 20 months in prison, Fingerhut two years.

The next day, Noel during an angry Capitol news conference accused SUWA of being a "shadow government" and claimed staff attorney Steve Bloch lied in a federal courtroom.

Last week, Herbert announced Noel would be a volunteer on the new Balanced Resource Council. The governor also hired to lead the group former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson, who left the SUWA board to take the paid position.

Wilson said he doesn't see why the panel should take up time on Wyss's legal troubles. "There are too many substantive issues everyone would like to see resolved," he said. "Hopefully this will not come in the way of that."

Herbert spokeswoman Angie Welling said, "We don't see a connection here" with SUWA in an unrelated criminal investigation in Pennsylvania. "The principals on the board are not SUWA board members currently."

Wilson said Wyss, "a lovely man," was instrumental in negotiations that led to wilderness designation in Washington County via a bill Republican Sen. Bob Bennett cosponsored with 2nd District Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

The June 16 grand jury indictment charges a subsidiary of Wyss' company, Synthes Inc., with 52 felony counts on accusations the company engaged in illegal "off-label" use of a bone cement in spinal surgeries. Three patients died on operating tables in 2003 and 2004 during surgeries while company sales representatives looked on, the indictment says.

Wyss isn't named in the indictment, which refers to "Person No. 7" as the company CEO and major shareholder who approved going forward with the off-label use without clinical testing the Food and Drug Administration demanded. The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported a company official identified Wyss as the CEO.

On the day the indictment was announced, Synthes Inc. issued a statement saying the company "has fully cooperated with the government's investigation" and "intends to vigorously defend itself against the charges.

Wyss remains on the SUWA board but stepped down as chairman in July, said Scott Groene, SUWA's executive director.

The indictment "has nothing to do with SUWA and we don't know anything about the particulars, " Groene said.

Wyss paid for SUWA's new $1.4 million headquarters in Salt Lake City and along with other benefactors helped swell SUWA's coffers to about $5.4 million, according to 2008 tax filings posted on SUWA's Web site.

Noel, an avowed opponent of SUWA lawsuits defending wilderness-quality public lands from industrial and off-road recreational damage, acknowledged it is a staff-driven organization. "I'm not sure actually how much input the board members have," he said.

At the same time, he said, "maybe it's time for the [SUWA] board to clean up their own act before they come after the state of Utah, the counties, on things they're supposedly doing illegally."

"They don't want their people getting indicted. When you pick those people, you want personal integrity," Noel added. "I'm going to take Ted at face value that he's going to do his best to find this common ground, without going to court, without the recriminations."

Wilson said SUWA board members undergo thorough vetting. "SUWA is quite deliberate about picking its people," he said.

Last year, Wyss gave Harvard University $125 million -- Harvard's largest-ever donation --to create the Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Wyss has his own foundation which provides scholarships for graduate students in conservation. Forbes magazine says Wyss, worth about $8 billion, led Synthes "to the fore of medical technology" as an international firm for biotech and surgical implants.

Wyss also serves on the boards of The Wilderness Society, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust.

Bill Hedden, the Trust's executive director, said Wyss hadn't attended a board meeting for about four years but has underwritten the Trust's losses on grazing allotments it bought on the historic Kane and Two Mile ranches that span 850,000 acres on the Utah-Arizona border

"I've gone hiking with Hansjorg," Hedden said. "This [federal prosecution] is not a side of him we have anything to do with. He's someone who knows the land and the issues and cares very passionately about them."

Wyss has served as an international elections observer, endowed museums in Europe, worked to save brown bears in Romania and promoted peace in Africa.

"He's a world famous philanthropist," Hedden said. "If he were actually convicted of a crime and it affected his giving, it would affect people all across the world."




A Dispute Over Utah Land Intensifies

Published: March 15, 2008

A long-simmering dispute over the best use for millions of acres of federal land has erupted publicly with the request by some Utah legislators that a well-known local environmental organization open its books after two of its directors were sentenced to prison in separate multimillion-dollar bank fraud cases.

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance seeks to have about 9.5 million acres in Utah protected. Federal authorities have said that the group, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, commonly called SUWA, was not involved in the cases, which led to the convictions of its treasurer, Mark Ristow, and another board member, Bert Fingerhut, who was once SUWA’s chairman. Each man pleaded guilty last year to using stock conversion schemes to swindle banks across the country of a total of more than $15 million.

But a letter signed by 45 Utah state legislators, most of them Republicans, asked SUWA to disclose details of its finances, meeting-minutes correspondence and other transactions involving Mr. Fingerhut and Mr. Ristow or occurring during the period of their criminal activities.

SUWA’s leadership and supporters called the letter, written by State Representative Michael E. Noel, Republican of Kanab, a politically motivated effort to discredit the group because of its role in drafting proposed legislation designating about 9.5 million acres in Utah as federally protected wilderness. The land includes much of the state’s storied red rock country.

Congress has designated slightly less than a million acres in the state as federally protected wilderness, the lowest acreage of any Western state, the group said. Once land is so designated, it is closed to new mineral leasing and to use by motorized vehicles.

“In Utah, wilderness is our scarcest resource,” said the staff lawyer for SUWA, Stephen Bloch. “To the extent that Representative Noel’s efforts succeed in diverting the argument away from how we protect these spectacular public lands, that’s unfortunate.”

The federal legislation, sponsored most recently by Representative Maurice D. Hinchey of New York and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, both Democrats, has been introduced every Congressional session since 1989. Over the years the number of acres proposed for protection has grown, angering many Utah lawmakers, who contend that restricting use of the land will harm the state’s economy.

“The members of the Legislature seem to have a lack of appreciation for the fact that these are public lands,” Mr. Bloch said. “They view them as Utah lands to be managed for and by Utahans, and we strongly disagree with that.”

Mr. Noel, who has clashed with SUWA over wilderness issues before, said that disagreements with the environmental group were an impetus for the letter.

“These guys push us to the very brink of economic disaster within our state,” Mr. Noel said, adding: “It’s absurd to take this hammer approach to try and protect the environment. It’s way overkill.”

The state lawmakers also argue that the convictions of Mr. Fingerhut and Mr. Ristow raise questions about SUWA’s credibility.

“Two of its board members were engaged in fraudulent activities that stole millions of dollars from credit unions,” said State Representative Aaron Tilton, Republican of Springville, who signed the letter, “and we want to know if any of that money made its way into SUWA.”

Mr. Tilton is vice chairman of Americans for American Energy, which advocates energy development. The Web site for a campaign the group sponsors, www.stoputahlandgrab.org, ties SUWA’s and Representative Hinchey’s support for wilderness protection to increased dependence on foreign oil and to aid to terrorists.

SUWA’s vice chairman, Ted Wilson, a former mayor of Salt Lake City, said his group’s leadership was “shocked to the core” that Mr. Ristow, a Harvard-educated, retired real estate entrepreneur, and Mr. Fingerhut, a former executive of Oppenheimer & Company, had orchestrated elaborate bank frauds for years.

Both were respected within SUWA. Mr. Fingerhut was a prolific fund-raiser and, like Mr. Ristow, had been on the board for about 20 years. Each evaded state and federal banking regulations to make illegal stock purchases from banks that were going public, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The two men generated millions in personal profits once the stock was sold, according to the commission.
“All of us were just amazed and just felt terrible,” Mr. Wilson said. “They’d been at our side for a long time. It hurt deeply.”

Last August, a federal judge in New Jersey sentenced Mr. Fingerhut to two years in prison. In January, Mr. Ristow was sentenced to 20 months.

The securities commission has never implicated SUWA in any wrongdoing, said David Rosenfeld, an associate regional director of the S.E.C.’s New York regional office.

“There are no allegations with respect to that organization in any of our filings,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.

Mr. Bloch said SUWA, like other nonprofits, planned to release only information already made public, including its tax forms.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I'm still trying to figure out why some folks here actually own trucks and burn carbon based fuel while living in a house, using electricity and buying their prepackaged food at a grocery store.

Good grief...this is a motorized access board. I don't think anybody here is a yay-hoo but you would think after reading some of these posts that any OHV related group and folks belonging to them were behind the wanton rape and pillage of the land.

Pretty simple. Hypocrisy and apathy. Their impact doesn't matter... its obviously our impact that must be mitigated. Makes me sick to think I have to sit and argue with some random from out of state that he has no clue whats happening on the ground here in Utah... all while discounting their own purported impact. I'm not saying that out of staters shouldn't have a say on the federal land here in Utah, quite the opposite. But you shouldn't take the implications of back easy politicians as any indicator of what is happening on the ground here. The problems they purport will be solved by Wilderness simply don't exist to the level they would have you believe. Yes, you are being fleeced by a money making venture that is known as 'Wilderness'. I spend dozens and dozens of days each year in and bordering Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas, they are in many cases just as scenic as they were when the roads were cut into the areas 50+ years ago. Some of these roads are growing over from lack of use. On the flip side roads are being lost to WSA designation, roads that were legal and well used are suddenly closed as if they didn't ever exist. Wilderness Advocacy Groups don't want to comprimise, they want to sue the BLM into submission... their own words are proof. The BLM can only find 1/3 the acreage of Wilderness that these WAG's are finding, is that not indication alone?

Like Robert Redford juniors. Of course he loves Wilderness, he was able to buy hundreds of acres from the Forest Service so he could cut down the trees and make a ski resort. Why would he want neighbors? Old boy Redford even got busted using a motorized vehicle (helicopter) in Wilderness himself. Figured since he beat Wilderness he was above it too

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Because I have a day job I really love and have no interest in becoming a lobbyist:sombrero: I wonder why the leaders in the BRC don't run for public office and 'change things from within'. While I do not have the time or interest in creating a group as you suggest, I would support one.

If I had a dollar for every apathetic response like yours, I'd just pull a Sue-YA (SUWA) and litigate the BLM into submission.

No interest in creating a group that will fix the purported issues you've diagnosed. That my friends is apathy.

Fwiw pro-access individuals in Utah have run for public office and are working to 'change things from within', they are our congressman and legislators that are not supporting ARWA, they are our commissioners that are fighting for RS2477 routes, they are our counties that are submitting official comments on RMP revisions. On some level they are even our BLM employees that worked hard to produce new RMP's that were fair and balanced despite pressures from WAG's that threatened to sue before the ink had dried on the proposed alternatives. These same BLM officials can't find the Wilderness the WAG's can. On a lesser level they are users within us that are board members and officers in their state and local OHV advocacy and education groups. Believe me, not everyone is sitting back

These issues are worth being concerned about though because they effect us all as recreationalist and citizens.

But these issues are not worth you trying to solve with your magical solution? For reals? Really?? Wish I could just be 'concerned' about the issues in my life. Too bad this world doesn't turn on concern lol.

 

[Wonderland]

I'm still trying to figure out why some folks here actually own trucks and burn carbon based fuel while living in a house, using electricity and buying their prepackaged food at a grocery store.

Good grief...this is a motorized access board. I don't think anybody here is a yay-hoo but you would think after reading some of these posts that any OHV related group and folks belonging to them were behind the wanton rape and pillage of the land.

It is called "Holier-Than-Thou":snorkel:

The Land must be saved for Their Children! ummm yeah, bringing more humans into the World is probably the worse thing one could do to the environment...

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Just for clarification, who is the hypocritic, apathetic, out of stater you are referring to? Those are pretty harsh words to be throwing around.

If the shoe fits, wear it. Sorry pal, just calling as it is. I'm not going to put the label directly on anyone. But in my mind for a motorized user to support the ARWA at face value is either apathetic or just crazy. And while I can understand the ideals behind not supporting BRC, all other things aside it would be worth supporting them just to prevent ARWA from being pushed on us.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

It's would seem that your business and income is dependant upon a pro-access stance. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it does demonstrate where your bias is.

Peripheral. 90% of my business is out of the state of Utah and while 'offroad accessories' are a decent portion of my business, they are minor in comparison to the repair and maintenance parts we sell. So to say we would be affected by even the passing of ARWA is a stretch, honestly I can't say I would even notice by the numbers.

My bias comes from my personal experiences in the field. Nearly every single trip I take has some association with Wilderness or WSA's. The passing of the ARWA would/could grossly change that.

I wonder, what professional training do you have in environmental science, recreational access, or economic development.

I am a certified Trail Patrol member, and a Tread Lightly Tread Trainer. Additionally I have worked as a volunteer on the Forest Service. I spent 3 years as the President of the Utah 4 Wheel Drive Association, two terms as a Land Use officer for our local Cruiser chapter. As a general BOD member for the U4WDA I served as the Land Use director for several years, I wrote our official comments on 4 of the 6 recent RMP's including the majority of the lands that are included in the ARWA. As part of that I attended the scoping meetings, the alternative meetings and worked directly with the BLM to identify the issues that pertained to the OHV crowd. I personally studied thousands of pages of RMP documents and maps to develop a reasonable strategy. After developing our official comments we distributed suggested talking points to users all over the US via forums and hosted letter writing parties here in Utah to aid OHV users of all types to get informed on the issues. I can say it worked. Our compromising stance while sacrificing some access did in an overall manor work. Of course those results are in court at the hands of Sue-Ya (SUWA).

I don't need a degree in environmental science to see that bogus lands are being included in the ARWA? For heavens sake the BLM followed the Wilderness definitions to the literal tee and they could only find 2.6 million acres of qualifying land. Lets talk about the 'professional training' that the volunteers had in the Citizens Wilderness inventory, which was used as the basis for the ARWA. None. They were summer break college students and pro-Wilderness. Hardly scientific as proven by the stark contrast between the BLM inventory and the AWRA proposal. 2.6 versus 9.7 million. We are not talking about a couple of contested parcels.

I'm in the 'land use' business as a landscape architect. Many of my projects deal with designing trail systems for multiple user groups. I've helped write for grants to fund recreational and environmental development. I'm in the business of sharing, utilizing, and preserving. Oftentimes, these elements are in competion with one another. Well crafted designs get these elements to work in concert. Getting the people who represent these elements to work in concert is the difficult thing.

I have no clue what that has to do with Wilderness and bogus inventories? It does have to do with starting what you call a fair 'middle ground' group to somehow work with a group that has very boldly acknowledged they won't compromise. But we've already established your will there. Again don't take it as a personal slight... but all the 'experience' in the world means nothing to me if you just want to talk about it. I'd agree you would be a great guy to have on the team, but front moment one your viewpoint of ARWA has been well established, we would have as much luck with Heidi Macintosh on the team imo.

So, before you go calling out people as apathentic, why don't you try out the PM function of this forum to sort out your frustrations?

Frustrated, don't flatter yourself I've got nothing to discuss in a PM. Not apathetic, prove me wrong? We've been having what I think is a great conversation here and here. While it might not change your opinion, I'd hope others do find at least some moment of truth about it. At least take time to develop their own opinion about what is really happening on the ground here in Utah. The BLM's 1999 Wilderness inventory is a great place to start.

I've been trying to learn more about what is happening in Utah and see you as a knowledgable resource in that regard. I have volunteered my services on this forum to document or design trail networks. I have volunteered for the overland routes project on this forum as well.

I tend to think of folks who don't want to be lobbyist or fund fund special interest groups as rational, not apathetic.

In the perfect world that would work, but given the insane budget and bias groups like SUWA have to push their ARWA agenda, being a fence sitter is no more the solution than it is the problem. There is a common saying around these parts referencing this exact situation... "if your not part of the solution, your part of the problem".

It's funny though, when I announce what I do, I get pegged for bragging. When I ellude to it, I'm asked for links, proof, documentation.
When I flat out avoid talking about what I do, I'm called apathentic.
No wonder people get tired of posting on this conservation forum:sombrero:

I consider you doing neither and I've known what you've done professionally since you offered it up on this forum quite some time ago. However unless I am missing something major I really have no clue what it has to do with Wilderness in Utah or forming a group that is the 'middle ground' when you've acknowledged you have no interest in such a thing? If your saying "I could, but won't" I would consider that apathy no? I mean we are all guilty of it in one way or another, as a gun rights advocate I wish I had more time to work on issues in that direction, at that I feel apathetic to the cause. Wilderness and access in Utah is not an issue I can do that with. We don't need trails mapped, we don't needs trail system created. These are all 100% existing routes, surveyed by numerous parties, the BLM, the State, the county, pro-access groups and WAG's. At the end of the day it comes down to what is considered a 'road' and it takes time and money for a county to prove that access to a given road has been established and preserved over time per the definitions of the Federal Land Policy Management Act.

take it easy,

You too :sombrero: I'm sorry if I do get a bit haste about this subject, but with a vested interest (my volunteered time) and my love for Southern Utah, its hard not too. I would have this same conversation with you over a campfire (at the end of a historic road that would be closed by the ARWA):friday:

 

[Wonderland]

As far as the 'saving the world for the children' comment. Rent a copy of Idiocracy :sombrero:

Exactly! Funny movie.

We don't have any spawn, so does that counteract the destruction my dirt bike causes?:elkgrin:

How many carbon credits do I get for not having children? [sarcasm]:ylsmoke:

 

[robert j. yates]

How many carbon credits do I get for not having children? [sarcasm]:ylsmoke:

LOL.... that reminds me of the internicine warefare in the Sierra Club a few years ago over immigration...quite amusing to watch the greenies slap each other around over what their stance should be on it.

 

[Wonderland]

LOL.... that reminds me of the internicine warefare in the Sierra Club a few years ago over immigration...quite amusing to watch the greenies slap each other around over what their stance should be on it.

Funny.

(a little off topic) I am fairly certain that border fence is screwing up the animal migration that has been happening for thousands of years, and well the human migration that has been going on for thousands of years...

 

[teotwaki]

Funny.

(a little off topic) I am fairly certain that border fence is screwing up the animal migration that has been happening for thousands of years, and well the human migration that has been going on for thousands of years...

Drive on down and see it if possible. I have. The area down there is fabulous!

The fence is not stopping any true animals (or even some of the "mules" and "coyotes") :elkgrin: :ylsmoke:

 

[Martyn]

I believe the reality of the situation is that not all the trails will remain open, and to expect them to remain open is a loosing battle. At the same time to close access to all trails is also not a reality, the direction to move in is a compromise between the two.

Some trails and areas are just too environmentally fragile to remain open to vehicle access, or they have suffered so much degradation that they need to be closed.

Other areas need to be set aside as wilderness areas to retain their pristine beauty.

From personal experience what I see in the back country is a majority that respect the environment that they are surrounded by, and a minority who abuse it. It's the minority who get all the attention, but that's the away it is.


I wish that there was an organization to support that had a belief structure closer to my own, but they all seem to polarized.

We aren't getting very far here hurtling abuse at agavelvr. It just displays how divided the community is.

If we want to move ahead and keep what is open still open we need to take responsibility for policing the people who are destroying the land we love.

 

[Wonderland]

Drive on down and see it if possible. I have. The area down there is fabulous!

The fence is not stopping any true animals (or even some of the "mules" and "coyotes") :elkgrin: :ylsmoke:

I have seen mules and coyotes near the fence line, I tuck tail and run the opposite direction.

I have a couple friends who were the engineers/foreman on the project. Some of it is impassable for deer, cattle, kudamundi, etc.

While some of it is simply anti-vehicle fence, which nothing a mini torch and some chains wouldn't fix. (I have my escape route already plannned :costumed-smiley-007) Heck, I know of one spot that has a simple cattle fence across it...with a "Please Close the Gate" sign on it. :elkgrin: