Jennifer was reacting to what she saw as overzealous policing of the Juniper Flats area. Her letter was her initial reaction and she could have been more diplomatic. She believes that FOJF's goal is not reasonable multiple use, but the elimination of certain uses that FOJF does not appreciate such as OHV and horse riders.

All of these user groups have no choice but to share the land and somehow figure out how to get along. However, she has had some personal experiences with one FOJF member in particular who expressed to her his disdain for horse riders.

But, just because you do not appreciate one or more of the user groups does not mean that you have the power to eliminate their use of the area.

I appreciate the need to document the illegal activites in the area, however, the report by FOJF goes way beyond that making note of activities that are legal, patrolling roads that are not a part of Juniper Flats like Bonita Vista and Milpass and acting like they are the police.

We do need monitoring of the illegal activities to demonstrate the lack of enforcement and that there is justification for law enforcement to be present in the area. I think that is the BIGGEST problem. There is almost no law enforcement presence in the Juniper Flats area. The root of this is that Chief Ranger Nelson is in charge of law enforcement and he has an agenda and is corrupt. His actions have created conflict between people on the ground, which is dangerous.

In addition, there are no signs marking the trails or the private property boundaries so how can you enforce the laws and regulations? Jennifer advised me that there are plans to erect signs marking the trails in the very near future. That is a start.

Jennifer attended probably 90% of the meetings that were held at the Green Tree in Victorville. I attended some of those meetings. I kept posting the meetings on the forum, however, Mojave Green and LaughingBear didn't attend. They attended the last few meetings when they started to realize that these decisions were affecting their backyard.

In addition, the BLM failed to notify the public or private landowners of these meetings or their potential impact. I wrote several letters to the BLM requesting that they notify people of these meetings. I believe there has been mismanagement of the area by the BLM and intentional illegal acts to achieve their goals, such as closing Moss Mill Road and the funny process with J1299.

You need to think about what your complaints could result in. You are asking the BLM for increased attention to the area. What if that results in more power for corrupt BLM law enforcement? We need marked trails and boundaries, education of the user groups and reasonable responsible law enforcement of the area.

If LaughingBear and MojaveGreen had attended these earlier meetings, maybe J1299 and Juniper Flats would have been handled differently by the BLM due to public demand. Instead, the routes in Juniper Flats were given a low priority. I remember going to a meeting where they were requesting interested citizens to go out on the land to document all the routes. MojaveGreen and LaughBear weren't there to participate in that activity.

Well, now the plan has been released and this is the comment period. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Maybe people could post the letters that they send so that others can better understand the public process and the issues.