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Post by SSO JOAT on Mar 28, 2013 22:32:47 GMT -9
The GeocacheAlaska! Advocacy Committee has negotiated a new blanket permit with Alaska State Parks that covers the Chugach State Park (outside of Anchorage) and now includes State Parks on the Kenai Peninsula within the KRSMA, PWS area, Kachemak Bay, and Resurrection Bay. There are additional geocache stipulations beyond the normal GroundSpeak Guidelines. Download and read the permit carefully before placing a geocache in one of these State Park areas. Post any questions you might have. You can view the permit via our Land Managers webpage or by downloading the PDF from here.
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Post by TheFirefly on Mar 30, 2013 14:06:00 GMT -9
Hooray!!! Thanks for the update, Scott!
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Post by NorthWes on Mar 31, 2013 6:47:11 GMT -9
We would love to hear constructive comments about the permit, as we are already working on fine-tuning the details for 2014. This permit represents a major step forward for State Parks in "managing" geocache placements. However, we'd like to fine tune many of the details (not the least of which is getting our name spelled right!). If there are stipulations you'd like to comment on here's the place to do it.
It's interesting to see how closely the stipulations correspond to Groundspeak's cache placement guidelines.
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Post by fuzzybelly on Mar 31, 2013 7:40:43 GMT -9
This is my opinion on the State Parks issue and explanation of how I think GeoAK is going about this wrong, and my suggestions of how to change it.
GeoAk should NOT be applying for a State Parks permit to allow Geocaches. Rather they should negotiate the ability for and individual cacher to apply for a permit.
GeoAK should NOT in any way act as an agent to police the rules that have been placed by the State Parks. Rather They should relay the requirements to individual cachers so they know what will be expected. (doesn't this sound eerily familiar to anyone)
GeoAk should NOT have to renegotiate new rules and policies in a newly issued permit year after year.
GeoAk should NOT be required to provide an updated list of caches with the State Parks. Rather they should help the State Parks gain access to the free Link where they can do this themselves.
After GeoAk has negotiated the ability for cahers to cache with in the state parks with individual permits, their part is complete. The rest of the regulating should be left to the State Parks themselves and the Groundspeak Reviewer.
I feel it it painfully obvious that the folks at the Sate Parks don't even know what they are regulating. This is demonstrated from the new permit they have issued and it's wording with in. Misspellings, unrealistic expectations, and overall lack of knowledge of geocaching, show me a lack of importance of the issue to them.
I believe we have stepped to far into the open and given the State Parks an open shot at us.
Ever heard the saying; "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" ? It's not you help me clean an area up for free and I'll place more regulation on you. This is what I'm hoping for with the relationship I'm building with the Glacier Ranger Station in Girdwood. I'll clean an area for you, you let me put a cache in your building. You let me put a cache on your trail, and I'll bring some people to it. Believe me, if they start trying to pull to much funny stuff on me out there, I'll stop being so helpful. I have folks who will be happy to help, but don't make it a big hastle.
This is my opinion of the subject and what I will work for with in GeoAk. I do not want us to be a regulator of caching. I think that has got us in trouble before, and I understand why. I will work to keep that from happening.
fuzzybelly
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Post by fuzzybelly on Mar 31, 2013 7:42:29 GMT -9
BTW, I think we have way to many places in this forum talking about this( I think at least 3, maybe 4). It makes it nearly impossible to follow what the few folks talking about it are saying.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Mar 31, 2013 8:32:06 GMT -9
First, it's a big deal and affects several areas, so multiple threads are inevitable. That said, this is probably a good place to consolidate public feedback. I'll review some of the other threads to see if it would help to merge some of them together with this one. Second, I don't see GCAK as taking a "police" position or role in any of this. I believe some of my own comments posted yesterday may have fueled that a little bit as I was playing "devil's advocate" with a few of the stipulations. My goal was only to point out some poorly worded pieces of the special stipulations, not to push GCAK into a policing role. I had intended only to point out that a lack of proper and complete wording could be construed by a greasy lawyer as placing GCAK into a position where we would take the brunt of responsibility for the actions of individual geocachers, who we do NOT have control over. My apologies if I poorly worded my part of that discussion. Now, GCAK most certainly SHOULD be applying for blanket permits with state parks and similar land managers. It is one of the primary purposes for our existence and appears in our By-Laws. If we do not consolidate the permits under a single entity, that leaves 100 different cachers all knocking on the door at state parks trying to get their own little permit. State parks will NOT deal so kindly with individuals as they do with us as a group of 260+ members. You would quickly find that state parks would not be so interested in writing up individual permits and would probably just ban geocaching entirely. Then everyone would be out. While there are several technical issues with this first ever blanket Chugach to Kenai permit, there is nothing in the stipulations that is unreasonable. In fact, nearly everything in the stipulations is a copy of the existing GroundSpeak cache placement guidelines that we are all supposed to be using for every hide. Even the annual cache visit requirement in this permit is pulled right from the GroundSpeak guidelines and I personally feel that everyone should have either a Found It or a CO Maintenance log on every cache at least once a year (with some leeway allowed based on remoteness and container type and fixture). I agree that the person who did the actual writing of our permit doesn't appear to be overly knowledgeable about geocaching. As an organization, I think GCAK is in a unique position to be able to fix that. I have a feeling that a little work with the Advocacy and Education committees and we could perhaps provide a geocaching class to the state parks personnel right there at their office and bring all of their permit writing staff as well as their field folk up to speed on geocaching. That would notch up two of our organization's purposes in one sitting while clearing the way for improvement on the next renewal of this permit. From my perspective, GCAK is not acting as an agent to police the park's rules. By providing the permit and talking about it, we are only educating the cachers who might use it. Any rule enforcement remains at GroundSpeak and with state parks, as it always has. I feel that we can "negotiate" better wording of the permit so that GCAK is clearly pulled out of the position of responsibility for individual geocachers. At the moment, some of the wording leaves it looking like we do have accountability. And that's why this discussion is taking place. We did provide state parks with the instructions on how to get their GroundSpeak accounts. Again, a little education of their staff might get them to realize that they have the ability to view that list of caches within their parks. It is certainly not a very complicated thing for us to provide an annual list of caches as long as we are provided with the geographic shape files that encompass all the park boundaries in the permit areas. That list, naturally, is stale the minute it is generated as caches are born and die all the time. Perhaps we can teach state parks about that concept and show them the benefit of real-time cache searching via geocaching.com with live data instead of a stale list. The only notable stipulation, IMHO, is placing the permit # info on the cache and log. But that's not a very difficult thing to do, and having that state parks permit clearly labeled on the cache probably makes the cache less likely to be removed by a muggle. The park permit ID makes it look more "official" if you ask me. Something that shouldn't be touched or moved. EDIT... On review of the other discussions, I've collapsed the Kenai thread into Fuzzy's thread. I'm going to leave the original Chugach thread (which is on this same board) as a separate entity as it has too many other things going on for a clean merge. The only remaining place that discussion of this permit is taking place is within the private board of the Advocacy Committee. That conversation is for committee and BoD level work, so it will remain separate. Members of the BoD should pay attention to whether they are posting on this public thread or in that private thread as to the content of their discussion. Let's try to keep this particular thread centered on the constructive feedback that Wes requested a little bit ago.
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Post by fuzzybelly on Apr 2, 2013 11:18:40 GMT -9
What say the rest of the members.
I'd like to hear some feed back on how you think GeoAK should be handeling this, or atleast there are some questions.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Apr 7, 2013 22:21:46 GMT -9
Question for Wes... since you're the one who spoke to the Park Lady about this permit...
You said that they used the KRSMA tag on the permit, but that they said that all state parks lands on the Kenai (excluding the special wilderness areas) fall under that area.
As an example, if you look at the property map I posted in the Caribou Hills thread, there are huge tracts of State DNR recreational land up there. Since DNR calls it recreational land, I would venture that it falls under the State Parks and Recreation section and would fall under the stipulations of this new permit?
Sound like a logical connection?
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Post by NorthWes on Apr 9, 2013 11:56:30 GMT -9
Question for Wes... since you're the one who spoke to the Park Lady about this permit... You said that they used the KRSMA tag on the permit, but that they said that all state parks lands on the Kenai (excluding the special wilderness areas) fall under that area. As an example, if you look at the property map I posted in the Caribou Hills thread, there are huge tracts of State DNR recreational land up there. Since DNR calls it recreational land, I would venture that it falls under the State Parks and Recreation section and would fall under the stipulations of this new permit? Sound like a logical connection? That sounds eminently logical, but I wanted to see the shape files for where they've 'permitted' our play. I called again this morning and asked if there had been progress on getting me a set of shape files for the permitted areas. Answer was no, not at this time. I'm emailing a request this afternoon.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Apr 9, 2013 16:14:32 GMT -9
Yeah, they even pulled down the park maps from their website last summer and have left a note that they are being updated and will be back soon.
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Post by NorthWes on Apr 10, 2013 20:14:06 GMT -9
They're acting like the public data is flawed, aren't they?
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Post by SSO JOAT on Apr 10, 2013 22:54:52 GMT -9
No comment about how they are acting (we've got forum rules, ya know). But it is quite frustrating to us members of the public that they are supposed to be serving.
OK, I'll go there...
How much time would a data entry person have invested in that permit, assuming that issuing said permits were that person's primary job? They are not starting from scratch, they have templates. They have Word. If you figure a slow typer, reading the newspaper, and getting a cup of coffee, I'd guess a permit takes about 20-30 minutes to complete. That person is working an 8-hour shift. They should be able to churn out 15 permits per day with a lunch break. How many permits are issued for our SC state parks each year? A couple dozen; fifty; one-hundred? I'm seeing about a week's worth of work at most, with some delays here and there based on lack of documentation from larger or commercial operators, etc. I don't see why a simple renewal such as ours takes so many weeks to complete.
/rant
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Post by NorthWes on Apr 12, 2013 7:50:18 GMT -9
Does make you wonder, doesn't it? At the individual & 'regional' level there's not a designated person to do permits; it's extra duty for someone. There's some extra details relating to checking background details, legal descriptions, etc. However, putting it all into one location as they're doing makes sense to me for the long haul. Keeps it from being an 'other duties as assigned' task for the local staffers. On the bright side, once we had the information to the Soldotna office handling the permits statewide, it went as quickly as it had gone in the past when Randy was able to get them turned around in a week at Chugach.
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