Comments about ‘2 Utah forests are merging’

In my opinion, a bad decision and we should be getting our management closer to the resource rather than farther away which I feel only leads to less familiarity of management problems and needs and with individual users etc.

Our natural resources are limited, our population is growing, conflicts in land uses abound. Could it be the problem that the Congress has their priorities for money mixed up and some of it should be redirected from short-term projects that benefit a few individuals to things like managing our National Forests for the long-term benifit of many people. It would seem to me that the closer the managers are to the resource, the better they will understand it and provide service to their users. I would expect that with such consolidations the travel time and costs for verious specialists to and from the Supervisor's Offices are increased. I think consolidation of Ranger Districts & Supervisor's Offices is the wrong approach.

I certainly would agree with "L" that Congress should be funding infrastructure like this rather than the silly stuff that ends up in the Congressional earmarks. I disagree, however with his assumption that there are no efficiencies to be gained from office consolidation. Consolidating separate FS offices based in Heber and Kamas is a no-brainer in my opinion. The extra driving would be negligible.

The W-C is one of the most heavily used Forests in America. The average W-C user logs 50+ visits per year! Google NVUM for usage statistics. These consolidations almost always keep upper level mgmt. intact while cutting core services on the ground--stuff the avg. user sees and enjoys. It's just a big scam that will keep more bigwigs to stay in their offices, isolated from serving the public, while the quantity and quality of recreational services continues to decline to abysmal levels. It should be opposed but it is so esoteric, the general public doesn't even have a clue what it means. Typical Smokey & Mirrors.