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FW: SOS-Wrongful Termination of Sequoia Volunteers
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From: Chris Horgan-Stewards of the Sequoia
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 1:54 PM
To: webmaster@vcmc.info
Subject: SOS-Wrongful Termination of Sequoia Volunteers

 

Stewards

Sequoia Trail News

June 2020

Wrongful Termination of Stewards Trail Maintenance Volunteers Continues

On 3/17/20 Stewards of the Sequoia volunteer trail maintenance agreement of 15 years was terminated without just cause by the Sequoia Forest Service Kern River District Ranger Al Watson. The Forest Service has no problem with any aspect of Stewards volunteer trail maintenance work.

A three hour mediation was held on 5/19/20 at which Stewards agreed to the terms laid out by Sequoia Forest Supervisor Teresa Benson for Stewards volunteer trail maintenance agreement to be reinstated. However she then deferred to the District Ranger Al Watson as the person who has the authority to sign off on volunteers in the local Kern River District. He then proceeded to accuse Stewards of being dishonest and that he would not have volunteers who are dishonest.

His allegation is based on Stewards having out of date information about fundraising on our five year old Who We Are Video which Stewards updated at the District Ranger Watson's request last year. Surely this is not being dishonest in any way. Surely the Forest Service has lots of out of date information on their web site. Does this make the Forest Service dishonest? District Ranger Watson has been on a fault finding mission spending considerable time combing through the Stewards web site trying to find some way to malign Stewards with nothing to show for it.

At the conclusion of the 5/19/20 mediation District Ranger Watson begrudgingly agreed for his busy staff to have a meeting in June with Stewards to see under what terms Stewards volunteer trail maintenance agreement could be renewed. However over the more than two subsequent weeks his staff have not contacted Stewards to set a date to meet.

Volunteers TerminatedStewards have jumped through many hoops over the past 15 years in order to be allowed to volunteer on our public lands. We continue to give the Forest Service every opportunity to allow Stewards to provide hundreds of miles of much needed trail work this year to resume Stewards successful partnership with the Forest Service.

However once again Stewards leave the table disappointed and without anything definite to get our volunteers working on Sequoia trails to help the Forest Service in their mission to maintain our public lands and trails.

 

Stewards Director of Public Lands Retires

Please show your thanks to Bruce by clicking HERE and LIKING and commenting on this post in honor of Bruce's service protecting your trails.

During his time as Stewards Director of Public Lands and Stewards board member Bruce worked often behind the scenes on many aspects of public land planning to help prevent closures including but not limited to-

  • Forest Travel Management Plans to prevent the closure of 160 miles of Sequoia trails
  • Sequoia Forest Planning instrumental in making Recreation a main topic and having Region 5 pull the flawed Science Synthesis which would likely have restricted or closed trails
  • Exposing the PCT Land Grab which seeks to close 30 miles of existing Sequoia Trails and more elsewhere.
  • Preventing the use of OHV Grant funds to harm OHV recreation

It will certainly be hard to fill Bruce's shoes, but please contact us at info@stewardsofthesequoia.org if you are interested in taking over as Stewards Director of Public Lands or helping with land advocacy.

 

Your Amazon Free Money May Not Be Going to Stewards Anymore

More than 65% of the free Amazon money for Stewards is no longer going to Stewards. This is because Stewards are no longer a subdivision of California Trail Users Coalition (CTUC). Stewards are under our own non profit 501c3.

  • Please go to Amazon Smile https://smile.amazon.com login and be sure Stewards of the Sequoia is your charity so 0.5% of your purchases will help Stewards of the Sequoia trail programs every time you shop.
  • If you see California Trail Users Coalition then please click the "Select a Different Charity" link and select Stewards of the Sequoia.
  • If you have not yet selected a charity feel free to select Stewards of the Sequoia.

Then be sure you login to Amazon Smile ttps://smile.amazon.com when you place your orders and they will donate.
If you order when just logged into the regular Amazon site there will be no donation for your trails.

This does work with 70 Stewards members so far doing it. But the free money only gets to your trails if you have Stewards of the Sequoia listed as your Amazon Smile charity. Don't pass it up

 

SPOTLIGHT ON LOCAL BUSINESS

L&M Lumber

4700 Lake Isabella Blvd
760 379-4631
http://www.lmlumber.com/

L&M Lumber in Lake Isabella offers a very complete line of hardware store items, household goods, fireplaces as well as tool rental and more

Support the local businesses that support keeping your trails open and tell them thanks for supporting Stewards.

 

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Over the years your donations helped Stewards reopen this trail along with eight others and so much more.

Yet today 84% of Stewards members have let their donations expire. Please make your donation now so we can continue our efforts to keep your trails open. Thanks

Land of Many Uses

With your help Stewards of the Sequoia will continue to keep the Sequoia National Forest A Land Of Many Uses and open to all

 

 

 

 

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