[at-l] AT Journeys

[Jim Bullard]

Well, while others on the list may be going to great extent to justify why
they don't want to to renew their ATC membership, I just renewed. It's a
lousy $35/year guys. I've spent more than that on a family lunch for Gods
sake and while I have problems with some aspects of the ATC bureaucracy,
I've never met a bureaucracy I totally liked and/or agreed with. And they
are working to preserve the AT which is a generally good thing even if you
wish they took a more bottom up, sideways to or whatever approach. Perhaps
the bureaucracy has evolved this way because bottom up dried up and it was
up to those who were left to do it top down, I don't know. I do know that
any active approach to preservation is better than sitting around and
bitching. They have my dues. They will continue to get them in the future.

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Sloetoe <sloetoe at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- Walt Daniels <wdlists at optonline.net> wrote:
>
> > Then read the mission and tell me what part of it
> > ATC is not maintaining.
> ### The Appalachian Trail. Not the experts'-derived
> corridor and all possible attendant issues.
>
> > For all practical purposes the trail itself is fully
> > protected, ...
> ### Bingo.
>
> > What is not protected enough is the corridor.
> ### Which is a mission that will never end, eh? Never
> be good enough? And never have sufficient funding? And
> always require more staffing? (As per below...)
>
> > "Our money" does not just happen. It
> > takes more dues paying
> > members and lots more donors. They don't just
> > volunteer - you have to ask them.
>
> > This is something we all know from working on
> > the trail. The tooth
> > fairy did not build it. We, the volunteers, did.
>
> > If volunteers fail to step up to
> > the plate then ATC must hire more staff to do what
> > the missing volunteers can't or won't do.
> >...I would like to see an ATC/Club volunteer
> > on the planning board of
> > every town that adjoins the trail.
>
> ### Walt, you and other "doers" have always had my
> respect for your time and efforts on behalf of the
> Trail and its broad hiking constituency -- most of
> whom, as we should *all* know, remain glibly ignorant
> of the efforts undertaken (with pick/mattock and with
> pen/keyboard) on their behalf. But there are two ways
> to go about getting any of these things done, and the
> ATC has entirely gone away from a bottom-up, "good
> enough" approach.
>
> http://friends.backcountry.net/pipermail/at-l/2008-April/008983.html
>
> ### Now, just for argument's sake, rather than just a
> biennial conference to gather and make common the
> efforts at maintaining a good "trail", (for an annual
> cost of an itty-bitty fraction of today's ATC
> membership), let's throw in a figure for monitoring AT
> Trailway development.
> 14 states
> 4 counties per state average
> 4 townships/lesser jurisdictions per county.
> 14x4x4= 224 monthly meetings/minutes to monitor.
> Some will take 1 minute, some will take 15; let's take
> 10 minutes as the average: 2240 minutes per month.
> 2240 minutes = 37.333 hours - let's call it 40FT
> hours.
> To hire a "specialist" law firm, with 75% of the work
> done with a paralegal, and 25% done with a lawyer,
> we're talking .25*$50 + .75*$200 = $87.5/hr, or
> rounding up, $100*40= $4,000/month, or $48,000/year.
>
> As long as we're rounding up, let's double the $48,000
> figure because after monitoring, there may be need for
> a brief, amicus brief, application for standing,
> verified petition, requests for administrative notice,
> etc, etc, etc, on behalf of AT interests. We're up to
> $96,000 per year.
>
> Some things may go to formal hearing/trial. Let's
> double the $96,000 for travel/meals/lodging, copy
> fees, and let's even pay some witnesses (who may range
> from $1 to $100,000, but let's just TRY and watch the
> bank here...). Let's round the figure to $200,000 per
> year.
>
> Let's add back on an amount for the original mission
> of coordinating the volunteer groups. Let's say that's
> a wild $800,000. We're right at $1,000,000 per annum.
>
> So two questions:
> 1) What's the figure from the ATC/etc! annual
> endowments/trusts/etc income EXCLUSIVE OF membership?
>
> 2) What's the ATC/etc. annual budgeted expenditures?
>
> I'll be honest, if I had millions of dollars a year to
> do a quarter of a million dollar task, I could
> probably find a way to spend that money. Yes I could.
> And I'll bet you that every person working from an
> ATC-related dollar is motivated, hard-working and
> provides meaningful trail protection. (And I SALUTE
> them.) But as I implied before, I don't wish to assist
> "solutions looking for a problem." I don't wish to
> facilitate the exhaustive search for perfect solutions
> when good ones (and cheaper ones) are passed by. This
> is where the ATC has gone.
>
> With respect,
> 'toe
>
> Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
>   Pro Pondera Et Meliora.
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>



-- 
Jim Bullard
http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/
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