So as to not further corrupt RG's worthy managing fixed protection thread...

Phlan aka Chris Moratz aka Chairman of the Gunks Climbers Coalition wrote:


You must be kidding Chris.

When I tried to meet with you and the GCC Steering Committe in person, years ago before any of the dust up here on gunks.com, you refused. When we finally did meet, in a meeting facilitated by The Access Fund, you got up and walked out when I was speaking.

The only other place I have seen you is at the Brauhaus, and I don't take you to task there out of respect for the Ruoffs and because you have made it clear, on a number of occasions, that you aren't interested in listening.

More importantly, for climbing access, neither you nor anyone else from either the GCC or The Access Fund has made any attempt to contact and listen to important aggrieved private individual landowners in the Near Trapps. I have given you their names in the past and on several occasions have implored you to contact them. The opportunity was there for years but no one in the climbing community was interested in what these landowners had to say. There was a time when the opinions of landowners regarding the GCC, and the climbers they represent, were somewhat malleable. That time has passed.

Chris, if your perception is that you are getting "overwhelmingly positive feedback" it's because you are choosing to listen only to people who already agree with you, people drinking the same Koolaid, so to speak. Unfortunately for all involved, having very strong opinions and little regard for the opinions of others, you are not a good listener, and you don't seem to have any interest in becoming one.

Your inability to listen, your philosophy of entitlement to access, and your support of coercive land acquistion practices together constitute a great disservice to the otherwise admirable efforts of The Access Fund and also to fair minded climbers everywhere.

Unfortunately it isn't just the self-entitled climbers and recreationists being denied access to private land, but everyone. Separating out only those who ascribe to your views would be ideal, but it's not possible. As the GCC is the only organization formally respresenting recreationists, specifically climbers, and as you remain the GCC Chairman, everyone is going to have to float in the GCC boat.

Lemme know when you'd like a face to face meeting with those landowners.

Bumped to change the subject title to "Not Listening".

I don't know the details of the interactions described, but I think Kent makes perfect sense here. Failing to engage in a consdiderate and constructive way with the Near Trapps land owners can only be a bad thing for Gunks climbing.

PHLAN WE'RE WAITING....

Pardon me, Kent.

I can't speak for Chris, nor about a meeting that I didn't attend, but as you well know, I contacted you on behalf of the GCC regarding both your vertical park proposal and meeting with the landowners. After our greeting, your first parley, which had nothing to do with either issue, nor climbing, and of which I had no knowledge or business to intervene, so misunderstood the GCC's role and influence to broker, that we never got beyond it.

Nice to hear from you Chris. Where have you been? (For those new to the board this is Chris Spatz, not Chris Moratz.)

My "listening" post started in response to Chris Moratz's provocation that no one would say to his face what they have said online when in point of fact I tried, repeatedly.

It then went on to ask why hasn't anyone from either the GCC or the Access Fund contacted landowners directly? There was an opportunity to leave me out of it and go directly to landowners. But the GCC has never followed the advise given on the Access Fund website. That advise is to identify the landowner and then ask for permission to climb on private land. If it's not given then don't climb there. It's pretty simple.

Tell me, has anyone from the GCC contacted, and listened to, any of the five individual landowners in the Near Trapps? By my count there are two sympathetic to the Preserve, one ambivalent, and two decidedly anti-preserve and at this point, anti-climber. Has anyone from the GCC listened to any of them? Has the GCC asked any of them, on behalf of the climbing community, for permission to climb?

The only thing specifically articulated about the Nears by anyone from the GCC has been something to the effect of "we will sue to retain access", this of course uttered by Chris M. This comment, among others, having been let stand, has had a very corrosive effect over time.

Aside from all this, if you wanna have a beer sometime, lemme know.

Kent,

I responded to your pitch as a rep for the landowners about an access issue and climbing proposal.

After that exchange failed, I was not inclined to attempt to circumvent the rep to speak with the landowners individually. If I was remiss in this decision, it was in part influenced by other GCC priorities and projects that remained on the front burner.

Chris, that exchange between you and I took place in 2005 I believe. Both before, and after, I implored Chris M. on two occasions to contact landowners directly. The first was at the meeting facilitated by the Access Fund. The second time was here on gunks.com more than two years ago.

From a discussion here on gunks.com in June of 2006....

<from me>

<and then from Chris M.>

Landowners were never contacted.

Independent of any of the issues revolving around Gardiner's Ridge Zoning law, the GCC has never proactively contacted private individual landowners to ask permission for climbing or to facilitate good relations with landowners. They have slide shows, adopt-a-crags, Skytop cleanups, and meet at each other's houses but they don't talk to landowners. This flys in the face of everything on the Access Fund website about how to interact with landowners.

To the claim that the GCC hasn't contacted private landowners simply isn't true. We've engaged with many directly adjacent to and indirectly connected to the Waterworks, to say nothing of the town board (individually and in town meetings with town members present), and the water district board, while staying in constant contact with the Access Fund when necessary for advice and feedback.

As a rep for the GCC I contacted you, a private landowner, who represented other private landowners. The former president of the Access Fund, Dave Rosenstein, personally engaged with you.

I gave your proposal a shot. The Access Fund heard you. We attempted to bridge personal acrimony. I may be negligent in having not taken the next step by contacting directly the landowners individually, but I feel that I made a good-faith attempt to start the process by contacting you. It didn't work, and I had to move on.

Whatever has transpired in the Nears in the intervening years isn't for lack of initial engagement, nor through some apprehension about dealing with private landowners. We got our asses kicked in the first public round in Rosendale, but that didn't stop the Waterworks from gaining momentum.

Dave Rosenstein engaged with me just once to facilitate my presence at a GCC steering committee meeting at R&S. That's the meeting Chris M. walked out on.

And that Chris M. and I haven't been able to move beyond our personal acrimony is no reason for the GCC to have never contacted individual landowners in The Nears.

Should Chris M. ever genuinely apologize, here on gunks.com, for his specific remarks which were so egregious to landowners, I would drop any animosity I have towards him in a nanosecond. That does not mean however that closures will stop. The underlying causes for the closures are much larger than Chris M. and I.

If the GCC were to practice what is preached on The Access Fund website for a significant period of time, that would pave the way perhaps for land reopening in the future. But that's where it starts, with respect for private property as articulated on the Access Fund website.