[Vision2020] Friends of the Palouse Ranger District; An Informal, Grassroots Group

[Moscow Cares]

Courtesy of today's (October 11, 2012) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with a note of thanks to Marilyn Beckett.

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An informal, grassroots group
The recent article (Daily News, Sept. 26) on the forest plan meeting at the 1912 Center had some inaccuracies.
The title and text refer to Friends of the Palouse Ranger District and Friends of the Clearwater as both being environmental groups. This is incorrect. Friends of the Clearwater is an environmental group. Friends of the Palouse Ranger District is not.
Forest Supervisor Rick Brazell used my example of the Lochsa Exchange as my question on the forest plan. My question was not about the exchange. It had two parts:
Why did the previous forest plan and this burgeoning forest plan not address the issue of checkerboard ownership/management conflicts if they are important?
How will the Forest Service discriminate between collaborative groups and public opinion? Is
there a rating system? If not, then how do they propose to balance these opinions?
My example illustrated issues that need to be addressed in the forest plan. The question is integral to the formation of a workable plan. Idaho has numerous checkerboard ownerships. One exchange happened in the 1990s as a result - the Beaver/Cedar Exchange. There's another checkerboard in the St. Joe (Panhandle National Forest).
While passionate about the exchange, I asked a well-reasoned, pertinent question as it relates specifically to the forest plan - a question written ahead of time and read verbatim at the meeting.
Brazell did not answer either part of my question.
In clarification, Daily News readers, Friends of the Palouse Ranger District is not a nonprofit. We're a small, grassroots, ragtag organization encouraged by Forest Service retirees. We have no funding other than what we can dredge up when in desperate need. We are working for common people, totally out of the spirit of justice.
We have been misrepresented in the newspaper. After four long years of volunteerism, we ask due consideration.
Marilyn Beckett
Moscow

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Thanks, Marilyn, for setting the record straight.

Seeya at the polls, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students.  The college students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)
 
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