Table Mesa Private Property Report

As some may know, a parcel of property in the Table Mesa Road area was recently purchased and is now private property. Located in this private property are (to my best understanding) the entrances or entire trail sections of Dirty Sanchez, Collateral Damage and Twisted. It is not clear at this time what the exact boundaries are to the private property are, but they are becoming apparent very quickly. Several (myself and two other club members) of us went up to the boundaries of the property to survey a rumored fence line installed over the last several days demarcating the property this morning (Sunday March 28, 2010.) It’s not a rumor.

The “shortcut” from what is known as BTG Camp at Table Mesa is part of the property parcel and is now closed to vehicular traffic. Additionally, wire fencing has been installed with a temporary easement access (the owners are working with BLM to find a permanent location) for crossing the river, but the boundaries are clear and the owners are unwavering. As we conducted our survey of fencing and closures, we were met (very courteously) by a Yavapai County Sheriff’s Deputy, an off duty LEO providing security and as we learned several minutes later, one of the new land owners.

Let’s stop here for a second and discuss what led to the fencing and access closures. As the owners have been doing exploratory and initial work to clean and secure their property, they have placed MULTIPLE signs demarcating private property. By our own witness less than a week ago and by confirmation of one of the new owners, those signs were ignored, removed, thrown away and essentially disregarded. When the property owners confronted individuals and groups entering their property, they were many times verbally assaulted and by accounts threatened with physical harm AND a firearm. A personally witnessed comment was, “There’s some guy on a power trip taking pictures and writing down license plate numbers.” Reprehensible behavior. Period.

This is not the way that I, or my peers, have been taught to behave. This is not the way we believe is respectful behavior to someone that has LAWFUL ownership of property. To disregard, destroy, ignore, and threaten a legal owner of property are some of the lowest actions I have been witness to or heard first hand accounts of. Is this what our community, the OHV community, has come to? Really? We, as a whole, need start self-policing our 1 percenters in a much more active manner. More to follow…

The new owners (we actually only spoke with one of the owners today, but others in our club have spoken with the both) are very decent people. Very amenable to us, the OHV community helping to be a part of the solution, they just don’t know how to reach out to our community. After we broke the initial ice and apprehensions (remember, this guy has been PHYSICALLY THREATENED by alleged “off roaders”) we had a very, very productive and respectful discussion with the one of the land owners. We believe that as a united group, we can prove to the owners that we are trustworthy, respectful and can be a part of the solution. We treated the man with respect, he treated us likewise. He may not understand our sport / hobby fully so we invited him to read the boards we all frequent. We believe that as a group of clubs, we can act as the communicators across the OHV community. Do we see a future of DS, CD and Twisted opening up by normal (or any) methods at this time? That is unknown, but time will tell.

Now, onto the “more to follow.” We are proposing a new, grass roots effort comprised of the clubs and wheelers (whether you be a crawler, desert rig, motorcycles, SXS, whatever) that frequent the area. We are asking that you communicate to your club members that the club will abide by the following when traversing the easement of the private property:

1. We agree to respect all property lines identified as private property by the owners.
2. We agree to communicate openly and courteously with the property owners when such communication is initiated.
3. We agree to assist the property owners with self-policing our communities.

Pretty simple, yeah? Amazing how a creed so simple makes so much sense. Almost common…

My personal commitment to the new owners, if they need any assistance identifying people trespassing on their property, I will do my best to bring them forward. Sound harsh? Too bad, I’d rather show private land owners that we CAN be responsible and win their favor so that we may possibly have access to use RESPONSIBLY on land they own and may not be using. Stop by and say hi to the new owners. Welcoming them will go a lot further than despising them.

Finally, some pics:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/577158591EzdUfn

Wheel what you can while you can. Link to good info... http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=876043

The azohvc has contacted the property owner and we have a meeting with the owners and blm this week. We have tossed around several ideas with the property owner to get access to those trails. The main one being is getting a legal easement granted for said trails, this would remove there liability. The second of this would be getting a group or club to adopt the area. Adopting it would require some basic up keep of the area. I'm thinking due to the comments I hear probably fence repairs and signage around there property.

Is adopting the area something that anyone as a club would be interested in doing?
Do you guys have any comments, plans, or ideas that you would like brought up during the meeting? If so please post them here in this thread...Thanks again you guys!
Oh one other thing, they are interested in moving the river crossing point further south due to the fact that they are going to have semis going thru there. You guys okay with this? Please let me know wht you guys are thinking.