Column: Supervisors’ policy is infuriating

Ken Layne

Regarding your “Off-road rule could be history” story of March 20, voters should be aware that San Bernardino County supervisors Neil Derry and Brad Mitzelfelt are deliberately ignoring a long public process to regulate off-highway vehicle abuses in the desert.

When word first spread of their apparent plans to allow up to 199 OHV riders to hold dirt-bike races on tiny 2.5-acre residential lots for up to six days in a row, without so much as a permit that takes the neighbors’ concerns into account, I wrote polite e-mails to both Derry and Mitzelfelt. Neither responded, despite my personal note to Brad reminding him that we’d met at an environmental fund-raiser and that I voted for him in 2008.

The Mojave Desert Land Trust asked its members to telephone both supervisors on Feb. 10, in support of keeping the county’s long-negotiated OHV ordinance in place. A staffer named “Nancy” answered both lines, and I politely made my position known. She said both supervisors’ phones were ringing off the hook all day long, and she kindly took my name and address and phone number, promising that Derry and Mitzelfelt’s office would call me back. Six weeks later, nothing.

Meanwhile, both supervisors have secret talks with off-road motorcycle groups hoping to tear apart the OHV ordinance we’ve worked on for so long. What’s going on? Are Derry and Mitzelfelt in such hot water over their involvement in what the Attorney General calls “the biggest corruption scandal in San Bernardino County’s history” that they’re desperately pandering to the off-road crowd?

Infuriating law-abiding property-owning voters seems a bad way to gain points with people who think running motorcycles around in circles at midnight on a workday amounts to good citizenship.

--

Source: http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/03/25/editorial/doc4baa324a4fb20881189005.txt

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites