Back to Home Page

Local Links
Sun Valley Guide
Hemingway in Sun Valley
Real Estate


For the week of August 25th, 1999 through August 31st, 1999

User fee signs mutilated


By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

g25sign.jpg (14479 bytes)Vandalism is not the most effective form of protest, Sawtooth National Forest User Fee Demonstration Program coordinator Mary Ritz said during a Monday interview at Adam’s Gulch Trailhead, where two fee demo signs lay axed to the ground. But it does—and did—raise eyebrows.

Over the weekend fee demo signs all over the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) and Ketchum Ranger District were chopped down with an ax or hatchet. Even a chainsaw appeared to be used on a sign.

The cost in materials and labor to replace the signs will be between $1,300 and $1,700, Sawtooth National Forest supervisor Bill LeVere said.

Signs at the SNRA’s Williams Creek, Titus Lake, Prairie Creek and the North Fork trailheads were chopped at their four-by-four-inch posts. Ketchum Ranger District trailhead signs, including Adam’s Gulch, Baker Lake, Norton Lake and two signs at Hyndman were also vandalized.

At the Hyndman trailhead, one sign was sawed in half, presumably with a chainsaw, and another was completely gone, uprooted from the ground.

In all, eight trailheads were vandalized, apparently in an effort to protest user fees, Ritz said.

In addition to the trailhead vandalism, the vinyl signs hung at the SNRA and Ketchum Ranger District offices were attacked. The SNRA’s sign was slashed in half and the Ketchum Ranger District’s was stolen about a week ago.

"Whether you like the program or not, this isn’t the way to protest it," Ritz said. "We’re just doing what congress tells us to. It’s a waste of money. It’s not making the program go away."

Ritz said the crime has been turned over to the Sawtooth National Forest law enforcement officer. However, she said, there is so far no evidence to go on.

According to a statement issued by Sawtooth National Forest spokesman Ed Waldapfel, all of the signs except for Hyndman trailhead signs will be reused.

Ritz said she would begin re-posting the signs yesterday, a task that would take her two to three days. In the meantime, she said, users will not be required to carry user passes at affected trailheads.

LeVere said he isn’t sure how officials will fund the signs’ replacement. He said sign replacement and re-posting could be funded by channeling user fee proceeds garnered thus far.

Sawtooth National Forest officials revamped the user fee program on May 14 to a trailhead-only pass instead of a general-use pass.

Ritz said that since that time, about 1,700 notices of non-compliance have been issued to those parking at trailheads who haven’t had user passes displayed in the windshields of their cars. A notice of non-compliance is not a citation. It warns a person that he or she will be cited if they don’t purchase a user pass within a set amount of time.

Of those who have received notices, Ritz said, 80 to 85 percent have purchased passes afterward.

Ritz said the Ketchum Ranger District and SNRA are averaging about 50-percent compliance this summer compared with 25 percent two years ago and 30 percent last year.

She said there are five or six people who have been issued notices of non-compliance who indicated they would not buy user passes and would gladly face a judge on the matter.

Ritz said the first scheduled legal hearings will be in November in Boise.

 

Back to Front Page
Copyright © 1999 Express Publishing Inc. All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited.