SkyLine Trail Destroyed Today
- I just got an email from a rider that works across the street from the SkyLine trail entrance.
- He is watching the trails being dismantled right now, at 11:15am Monday November 6th 2006.
- The government wastes tax payers money all of the time, just now we are all seeing it first hand.
- Although we have over 1100 signatures in under two weeks, we have volunteered to maintain the trails, we got the San Diego Mountain Biking Association involved, we diligently followed the names and numbers of a half a dozen parties “responsible for the land management”, all of which shuffled us on to the next contact with no real answer to the question of “who’s responsibility is it?”, we have doctors, lawyers, profesionals, parents, outdoor enthusiasts all volunteering to help the city maintain these trails, we have found other city own Open Space Lands with ammendments allowing biking (why can’t we just copy and paste the same ammendment into this area?) we even have the California Forest Service planning listening sessions to help provide high-quality sustainable biking opportunities in California yet the government only wants to deal with issues that purtain to election time and ensuring job security until the next November when its all on the line again; the Iraq War, Gay Marriage, I-5 widening, California Traffic Gridlock, Immigration Policy, Republicans vs. Democrats and the only Proposition that passed this election was the one without a vote; PROPOSITON DESTROY FLIGHTLINE…that’s the one that said, we don’t care about the citizens of San Diego or their voice. We just want to get re-elected.
- The Media, whom we thought would be our friend in this situation, was harsh on the trails. North County Times used harsh words painting the picture as dangerous, destructive trails created by criminals (bold print:Industrious trespassers) instead of conveying these trails as a resource for North County profesionals and citizens to enjoy family time with their kids or shed the extra weight gained while sitting behind a desk earning a living and trying to pay our taxes. As trails that would have volunteers regulating rules and safey with no financial burden to other non-riding citizens. Instead, they helped the city.
- I posted a comment in the comments section of the article stating, “if you support saving the flightline trails, go to RideFlightLine.com and sign the petition.” They denied the comment.
- The Skyline trails at FlightLine are being demolished as we speak…with our tax money.
- EVEN SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS ALLOWED REPRESENTATION AND A VOICE.
Posted: November 6th, 2006 under News.
Comments: 15
Comments
Comment from JOsh
Time: November 6, 2006, 1:56 pm
I think we should all just go ride what is left until there is nothing left!
Comment from stefan
Time: November 6, 2006, 3:28 pm
No, we shouldn’t do this. We still have a fight ahead of us to be able to ride the rest of the trails.
The one bit of REAL news in the article that could help us is that the only trail they are worried about is the SkyLine trail.
They should open access to the other trails for us and use the are as a staging ground to gather support to have work parties manage the trails for free.
Comment from Jerome
Time: November 6, 2006, 3:43 pm
I’m really mad about that. We already shown a lot of respect by no trespassing and the willingness to go thru the proper channels. I think CNLM doesn’t show respect to us and to the +1000 other people that support us.
I really want to be constructive but today CNLM did a really offensive move.
Let’s get tonight at 5.30pm to commemorate our trail and to show to these people we are still standing up and we don’t want to give up…
Comment from richard julien
Time: November 6, 2006, 4:00 pm
Yeah Stefan but the big point here was that Markus wanted us to show respect and demonstrate trust. Which we did. No riding and cease building trails. In return how much help did we recieve in delaying the tear down which has been our battle cry all along. Markus is not a mtn biker like us and therefore there was zero motivation to help us try to achieve that. He will fall back on the “I was just following orders”. Of course he made sure those orders were made after taking the officials on a tour before we could explain anything. Yup we are the bad guys here. If only it were a golf course and we could get the city to build it for us like the one down the street. I am very disappointed in him. I like the way he never showed his face to the camera in the article. He doesn’t seem to be older than us. That shouldn’t matter he should’ve met us 1/2 way a 1/4 way and just delayed he time table alittle. We groveled for it and got no response from him. I guess to some it is just a one way street. The best trail is no more.
Comment from richard julien
Time: November 6, 2006, 4:29 pm
Now it becomes clear how diplomacy works. A small gesture on Markus’s part would have signaled to the masses that we are doing the right thing and following a proper course of action. Instead everyone sees again that the old adage of fighting city hall is futile, until they want a golf course. How difficult was it to delay the tear down for one week? Even had we recieved the delay and still lost the trail at least there would have been satisfaction that the system was responsive enough to listen to us first. What a good opportunity to show the 1000 and more that signed the petition that you will be heard. How sad in the age of the internet when a key individual who can do things like listen on the mtn bike web site to candid conversations and be e-mailed every which way could not show just one tiny bit of respect back like the respect he asked for. Disappointed!!
Comment from stefan
Time: November 6, 2006, 5:04 pm
I can’t agree with you guys more…but I think I projected that in my original post.
We went through the propper channels, we showed respect and none was shown to us.
Jerome…where do you want to meet? I think meeting tonight might be too short of notice.
Comment from Jerome
Time: November 6, 2006, 6:15 pm
I’d like too meet at the P.lot.
Yeah that’s probably a short notice…
The idea was too show our disagreement by some public hapenning.
Anyway, I’ll be there tonight.
But we can probably organize something better tomorrow at the meeting. Maybe a pacific walk (or even a ride) on the trail, maybe invite some press, take picture, movies of the event.
Comment from JOsh
Time: November 6, 2006, 7:03 pm
If they want to just get rid of the two entry trails………… what? Those are the two best trails out there. But I guess we can’t be picky. I went by around 4pm today and there is a lot of crap blocking the entry ways, as well as it looks like part of the bridges. That sucks! As well, it looks like they are digging large holes to put up a fence so we can’t enter the trails via the parking lot entrance. What is going on? Where else can you enter the other trails from?
Comment from richard julien
Time: November 7, 2006, 7:52 am
An other waste of money. Is all that truly neccesary? If that was coming out of Markus’s pocket do you think he would be doing all this ? I believe our compliance was pretty well across the board.Such negative actions are not needed. His methodology seems to continue to treat us as not cooperating and the communication from cnlm , who initially said let us work together, is non existent. We just muddle our way and recieve no info from them. No timelines no meeting us and obviously no destruction delays. So we are on our own. Hey cnlm we aren’t young skateboarders that you will treat like we shouldn’t be involved. This is our home. It is all disappearing. This small area was providing immense joy to many adults. Thats right adults. We participate in a healthy activity that coexists with nature and we can help manage the area. Can we look to cnlm for leadership?? They are currently showing an attitude that we are outsiders. Meeting tonight at Tom Giblins Carlsbad Village 5:30
Comment from Joe Reylek
Time: November 7, 2006, 9:53 am
Just look at Markus’s screen name on mtbr.com: “HOHUM”. That’s a statement in itself.
In our brief one-to-one conversations with him, he seemed to want to include mountain biking in his plans, but his actions prove to the contrary. True colors. Sanitized trails.
Comment from Mark
Time: November 7, 2006, 12:40 pm
Civil disobedience is in order. I was willing to give the legal approach a try, but we can all see where that got us. Face it, the city could care less about mountain bikers. For that matter, they obviously don’t care about anything but building more and more and more…….
I am over trying to appease some jerk named Markus. For all I know he is some Napoleon complex knucklehead that gets off screwing with people who can actually make it up the hills he governs.
I’ll take my chances.
If you think this hurts the cause for the rest of the area, keep in mind, they have completed 1/3 of what they plan to grade and develop. That means almost the entire area is doomed anyway.
Just ride and enjoy it while you can.
What we all need now is a new lower profile entry point.
My guess is that if we go underground and keep a low profile, they will leave us alone.
Comment from jerome
Time: November 7, 2006, 2:43 pm
I went to the trailhead today and Frontier Fence Escondido(745-5609) was putting a fence. Some debris, cactii has been put in the middle of skyline. The workers said it’s going to take a week to get rid of everything, Another company is supposed to come tomorrow and the day after to continue the demolition. The workers understanding was they are going to get rid off ALL the trails(even on the other side of the stream). I took some pictures of the demolition, I’ll post them ASAP.
Comment from richard julien
Time: November 7, 2006, 3:12 pm
Wow what a colossal expenditure before absolutely knowing the trails were not legitimate. A weeks worth of work and a fence to boot. Do the math. That kind of money would have gone a long way in trail enhancement or redesign. Coupled with volunteerism it would have turned into a show piece and could ‘ve been a real feather in Markus’s hat. He could’ve been the model for local land management coordinated with nationally recognized bike groups. Now an inordinate amount of effort goes to damage control. The trust in cnlm is at an alltime rock bottom low. People feel like they have been duped as usual by the local fiefdom. Respect was not shown in the least. Tonight will be a regrouping and rebuilding effort to see if we have major resolve to still work with an organization like cnlm or if we are going to blow it off Again no timeline has been presented by cnlm. The time frame has come down as word of mouth and it was in terms of a year. Once again cnlm is not ignorant and knows the key people to contact to spread info in order to let everyone in on what is suppose to happen. Like a meeting with the mtn bike group,the most proactive user group relating to this parcel. Land management must be their skill set and we have to put people skills into their mind set. Assumption after assumption. Without them communicating what else can we do? We already know cnlm monitors our actions. Why did the police show up exactly at 5:00 at the last meeting? Big brother is watching. The feeling today from the chatter on the net is now an us and them mentality. Just what doesn’t work. Lets us step up to the plate again and be the adults. We are all old enough to be Markus’s parents. How ironic is that. We raise the younger generation only to have them stuff us just like on the take off at Suck-outs!!!
Comment from JOsh
Time: November 7, 2006, 6:38 pm
A rear entry is elcamino to cannon. It dead ends and park at the church and go in behind there. You have to ride for a bit, but it pulls you into the trail system. Want to go back, but I read that if they catch you they keep your bike for evidence. They would have to fight my East Coast ass tooth and nail for my $4K bike. Then I would get arrested, which I don’t need or want. The sad thing to me is what the world is coming to. You can’t even ride a bike on land without permission these days. The trails have been there for so long and now that they found them, they want to get rid of them. It just doesn’t make sense. But I guess it does not have to for me, just to the assholes that are tearing up the land and putting pavement down.
Comment from sean
Time: November 8, 2006, 10:31 am
ok. let me play the devil’s advocate here. the first thing we all must remember is that the reality is we broke the law. this is in fact private property (whomever owns it). we did build non-permited structures on private property. i rode ‘em just like everybody else and broke the law as well. should we really be shocked by the outcome?
i entered into this thing kind of late. i don’t know how this whole thing has been presented to the media and such. but i have read through this entire blog and from what i have read, it seems that from the beginning this has been presented as a mtn bike issue. if that is the case, there’s the problem. we’ve been through this before with other ride spots like Calavera Lake. they tried to shut it down a couple of years ago. they posted the signs, closed off trails, etc. we were stopped and threatened that we would be areseted. in the end, they found that they would never win. we are too strong…and Calavera lives.
however, what we found is that the term “mtn bike” means different things to different people and scares the hell out of those who are uninformed. we actually found out that many people were confusing mtn bikes with motorcycles. we knew this because they were making claims about how loud the bikes were…we were like huh???
if this thing has ANY chance to be saved, it must be presented as an “excersise” mecca. for runners, hikers, walkers AND bikers. i have seen several runners out there on lunch break and they will be just as bummed as us if we lose this thing alltogether. we also need to play up the fact that north county is an action sports mecca with several “action” sports companies nearby who frequent the trails for excersise i.e. No Fear, DC Shoes, Haro Bikes, K2, Callaway and Taylor Made Golf, Mirraco Bikes. etc…
my 2 cents.
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