Institutional Permit Workshop, October 2011

Here are the meeting notes from the meeting's facilitator (and RMAC member) Marilyn Tahl.

This meeting summary is very late (February 2012), so it will not be very detailed.

In attendance from ICO was Ryan, Chicken, Bill, Margery.

A significant portion of the meeting was spent on permit allowances. Meaning, how many trips will institutional groups be able to run per day? What will be the size limitations? This is obviously a big deal for all of the different constituencies. The Institutional groups don't want to limit their outreach, but many commercial outfitters have very small allowances. It is likely that a compromise will make everyone unhappy.

River usage fees was another big issue, but there was less back and forth discussion. One noteworthy piece of history is that the RMAC tried to implement a universal/across-the-board river usage fee (which most people recognize as the most fair solution), but the country sheriff refused to enforce it, so the proposal was abandoned. For me, that really illustrates that there many, many different factions involved, and that makes the process very difficult.

The meeting was left without any specific follow-up steps forthcoming. My guess is that the RMAC will digest the comments received on their discussion items and begin drafting actually policy language. Hopefully that will also include another round of public comment. Ultimately the County Board of Supervisors (not the RMAC) will need to approve any new policies. There is no timeline in place.