OHV Users Picket Forest Service Office

A group of off-highway vehicle enthusiasts who picked Friday and Saturday at the U.S. Forest Service station in Hathaway Pines say they´ll return again next weekend.

A group of motorized and non-motorized trail users, Partners in Recreation, rallied to show opposition to Forest Supervisor Tom Quinn´s latest Interface trails decision. “We´ll harass the hell out of them until Quinn pulls his decision,” Jim Willis, a PIR member, said.

Quinn withdrew an earlier, Dec. 4, decision which closed some trails and opened others after several community groups filed appeals. The Interface is a section of national forest that parallels several Highway 4 communities. A coalition of groups formed after Quinn withdrew his earlier decision and gave recommendations to develop Quinn´s new decision.

Willis said PIR was intentionally split up during those Forest Service negotiations.

The picketers are “what´s left of the real PIR,” he said. Last weekend´s picketing was just for practice, Willis said. “Now we can get together and hit them whenever we can.”

The group plans to be at the Forest Service Hathaway Pines office Friday afternoon and at the Independence Day parade in Arnold Saturday. “When we get our skills honed, we´ll go to Sonora (the Forest Service regional office),” Willis said. “That´s our ultimate goal because that´s where Quinn is himself.”

Calaveras Enterprise story by Vanessa Turner. For more Calaveras news, click: calaverasenterprise.com