Monday, January 16, 2012

Ken Salazar calls for Fort Ord national monument

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ended a visit to Monterey County on Friday with a call to President Barack Obama to designate Fort Ord as a national monument. Conducting an informal poll of the audience in a town-hall type meeting in Marina, Salazar described the designation as the best way to conserve the coastal lands in perpetuity. "Our best places in the United States ... are those where you have the kind of united community support that I see here today," Salazar told his audience after nearly 100 hands were raised in favor of the designation. By afternoon, he was touring the vast Bureau of Land Management acreage on the former military base that hugs Monterey Bay. Atop a rise with spectacular views known as Wildcat Ridge, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, pointed out to Salazar the surrounding natural attractions, from Pinnacles National Monument to the east, Los Padres National Forest to the south, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to the west and the future Fort Ord Dunes State Park below the red-rock hilltop. Jokingly calling the region the Disneyland of the outdoors, Farr said, "There is more diversity of outdoor activity (here) than anyplace else in the United States." Farr noted the area's proximity to Salinas — "the largest agricultural city in the country and home to more farmworkers than anywhere else"...more

What a fool Rep. Sam Farr is.  That would be like George Washington pointing in all four directions and being proud of all the land owned by the King of England and then saying, "Please King George III, restrict our access to these lands."

Oh well, everything will be ok, cuz a lady in a gunsel looking pink cowboy hat will be managing it all for the King.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

maybe they could give it back to the Army instead of Pinon Canyon. It was used as a live fire range for decades. of course, we could throw in Ft. Hunter-Ligget and the Presidio in San Francisco as alternate sites.

Anonymous said...

Army doesn't want it. That's why it is being divested of in the first place. And I love how "the westerner" is only in favor of local control when the locals don't favor federal control. You can't have it both ways Mr. Ed. Keep bloggin in front of your computer, and the rest of us in the west will keep working to protect and enhance this place that has provided our generations with so much.