 Peninsula Open Space Trust Foundation, the Resource Legacy Foundation for coming out tonight. I have on my schedule that it was going to take you 30 minutes to find your seat, so you're already overachieving. Everybody underestimates Santa Cruz. Everybody underestimates this town. I should introduce myself. I'm Hillary Bryant. I am. Thank you for that. Former mayor of the city of Santa Cruz. So for all of you that thought you were done with me, I'm back tonight. Part of the reason I'm back is because this is such an exceptional and exciting project. And also, when Mr. Keely calls, you don't say no. So I'm glad to be here this evening. I'm glad that you're all here. And I think we're going to get started. The kids look like they're getting ready to go. We're here tonight because we're all very excited about this opportunity to have President Obama designate over 5,800 acres on our north coast as one of our nation's most important public places. And we're going to begin this evening with a blessing from a very important person. Val Lopez is a chairman of the Amamutzin tribe, which has populated our north coast for hundreds of years. Chairman Lopez and the Amamutzin tribe are supporting the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument because working to establish this special monument status and public access are in accordance with the Elonian Mutsin beliefs. Chairman Lopez, if you could come to the stage, please. Thank you very much, Hillary. I appreciate that introduction. Thank you all for being here tonight. It's an important night. I'd like to thank those who organized the event and those who are speaking tonight and supporting this whole effort. My name is Valentin Lopez. I am the chairman of the Amamutzin tribal band. Our tribe is comprised of the documented descendants of those that were taken to Mission San Juan Batista and Mission Santa Cruz. We're here tonight to kick off the Tritoni Wastak, known to others as the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument Campaign. The Amamutzin are grateful to those who are supporting this campaign as they have a deep respect for Mother Earth. Our ancestors lived on these lands for thousands of years and hundreds and hundreds of generations. Our creation story tells us that our people were very specifically selected by creator to care for these lands and to care for all living things. In turn, the land and wildlife took care of our people. These resources were given to us, all of us, as a gift. To show our appreciation for these gifts, we must respect and use the gifts for which they were intended. The spirit of our ancestors still remains on these lands. The spirit of our ancestors will remain on these lands until the very last sunrise. They are waiting for our return. Our ancestors cared for these lands by applying tending and stewardship techniques, which included careful burning, pruning, sowing, and tilling. They left a human imprint that was nuanced. Our gathering, fishing, and hunting took place inside a biologically diverse ecosystem, with harvesting occurring as part of the ecosystem process, not at the expense of the ecosystem process. When the Santa Cruz Redwood National Monument is approved and all of us will work together to ensure that happens, this will not only provide protection for these lands, but it will allow people from all walks of life to come to Santa Cruz to see the amazing duty of this place. Our tribe looks forward to returning to Chattonee so we can once again have ceremonies to call home the salmon, to taint and manage the landscapes, and to continue to fulfill our responsibility to Creator. I'd like to offer a prayer now. If you can, please stand. At the end of a prayer, we say, Ho, Creator, we are here. Thank you for bringing us together. Please hear our prayer. Creator, we ask that our efforts to protect the lands known to our ancestors, as to Chattonee Wastak, and now known as close dairy properties are successful. Creator, Mother Earth needs healing, and this effort is important for that reason. We understand that for Mother Earth to heal requires all people, native and non-native, to work together to develop and maintain strong connections and relationships with our plant and animal kin. Creator, our finned brothers and sisters, our four-legged brothers and sisters, our winged brothers and sisters, and our leaf brothers and sisters are waiting for us. Creator, please allow all of us to work together to restore clean and clear waterways. May we restore strong herds, deer, and elk. May condors and eagles soar over the ridges and valleys. Creator, the Santa Cruz Redwood National Monument will be a place where parents and children can learn, enjoy and experience nature, and develop a lifelong love and respect for Mother Nature, which you have given us. Creator, this is the vision that we share here tonight, and this is why we pray tonight. Please be with us, with all of us, as we work for the success of Santa Cruz Redwood's National Monument. Ho! I'd like to, all of the songs that our ancestors sang, they're all prayer songs. This is a gathering song that I'm going to sing, and it's to call people together, to unite us and unify us and give us so that we understand each other with our hearts, and that we have open minds and open hearts to listen and understand and to pray together. You'll notice I sing the song four times. That's to give us balance, balance in the four directions, balance within our minds, our hearts, our bodies, and our souls. Yo-ki-yo, oh-yo-yo-ki-yo, oh-yo-yo-ki-yo, oh-yo-yo-ki-yo, oh-yo-yo-ki-yo, oh-yo. Once again, so when you run for office, you often talk about the kids. You're doing it for the kids and the future generations, but there's so few opportunities to really, truly make a difference for future generations. This is one of those chances for the whole community. And for me, this is what tonight's all about. It's this group of kids in front of you. These are children from Westlake School, Galt School, De La Viega, and Bayview. And they are here tonight with their teachers. Let's give them a big hand. Come on, these guys are out for you. Stand up in front of this many people. They're doing a great job. They are here with their teachers, Katrina Hagar and Greg Brown, and they are going to sing for you, This Land is My Land. Wanted to be able to send these best wishes and a new chapter in our county's history. The Santa Cruz Redwood National Monument represents our commitment to preserving this land, not only for our own children, but for all visitors who will marvel at the beauty of the coastal treasure. That was Assembly Member Mark Stone. Assembly Senator Bill Monning also sends his regrets, but sent a statement. Dear friends, I'd like to offer my strong support for the establishment of the Santa Cruz Redwood National Monument. I'd also like to thank all the sponsoring organizations and individuals who have joined forces to move this dream forward. Special thanks to former Secretary Bruce Babbitt for your lifetime of service and to Secretary John Laird for your presence and years of service and support and protection of our environment and to our own Fred Keely and all who have gathered tonight to support the establishment of the Santa Cruz Redwood National Monument. And finally, from our United States Senator Barbara Boxer, the preservation of the coast area's property, a long time in the making has truly been a community effort. From its purchase by the Land Trust for Public Lands in 1998 and to its transfer to the BLM last year, the residents of Santa Cruz counties have shown their dedication to protecting and conserving this beautiful and neat piece of the central coast. Expansion of our national monument system not only helps preserve landscapes of tremendous beauty and diversity for future generations to enjoy, it also boosts the tourism economy which supports local employment. I look forward to working with all of you as you begin the Santa Cruz Redwoods campaign and continue to build support for this effort. So that's from our Senator Barbara Boxer. So we'll thank all of them for their support, great performance, and certainly last but not least, our representative in Congress who wished that she could be here tonight who represents the North Coast is Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. She's one of the strongest supporters of this effort. Congresswoman Eshoo has been working on this national monument designation for over a year. She's in Washington, DC this evening and is joining us by video. And we have that video for you here tonight. I believe we're gonna be up on the Jumbotron just like a Warriors game. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for attending this monumental occasion. The only reason that keeps me from being with you in person are my responsibilities to be in Washington, DC to vote in Congress. My thanks to former Secretary Bruce Babbitt for making the journey to California to advance our cause and to all the dedicated volunteers and to my incomparable friend and leader, Fred Keely. Together we're in pursuit of a noble goal, to declare the magnificent 5,800 acres of the Coast Dairies a national monument. Permanent protection of this land has been a priority of mine as it has been yours for over two decades. These lands are rich with natural resources and majestic features. And since the 1960s, our region's environmental leaders and conservationists have been successful in protecting the Coast Dairies from development in order to preserve the land in perpetuity. I first walked the Coast Dairies land as a county supervisor on the San Mateo Board in 1992 with the late, great Santa Cruz County supervisor, Marty Wormhut. At that time, the Coast Dairies land was pegged for luxury home development. Through our efforts and the efforts of a coalition of nonprofit environmental organizations, we were successful in averting that development. In 1998, the Coast Dairies came under permanent protection when it was purchased by environmentalists with funding from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. And last year, the Coast Dairies land was donated to the Federal Bureau of Land Management. I'm proud to have worked with Congressman Sam Farr to ensure that the Bureau abides by the deed restrictions on the land preventing further mining or logging. Tonight, I'm pleased to announce that I introduced legislation today in the United States House of Representatives to designate the Coast Dairies lands as the Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument. This legislation will give this diverse natural landscape the permanent recognition and protection it deserves. When this land is fully open to the public, it will be more than a hiking and recreation destination. It will be an integral part of life in Santa Cruz County and it will be a place for future generations to learn from, to love, and enjoy. It can sometimes take decades to assure that precious lands in our country belong to future generations. Tonight, we embark on the final step in our long journey together. Thank you for your extraordinary advocacy on behalf of this exciting project and for inviting me to be with you. I'm confident that our work, together with neighbors of the land having their issues addressed, will produce an outcome that is worthy of the people of our region, our country, and future generations. Thank the Congresswoman for all the work that she's done and will do. And it was my understanding that she was personally lobbying the President on this idea just this afternoon on Air Force One. So I think we've got a good, good, good representative in Congresswoman Eshu. And there are a number of elected officials, both president and past in the audience tonight. We thank them all for their service. We're so honored that they're here with us. But none more so than my dear friend to my right here, Fred Keely. As you know, Mr. Keely represented the California State Assembly where he authored two of the largest park and environmental protection bonds in our nation's history. Fred is a statewide environmental leader and is currently president of the Separate Virings Fund. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Fred Keely. Good evening. Thank you very, very much. This is an absolutely wonderful turnout and display of support for the Santa Cruz-Redwoods National Monument. It is my pleasure to get to introduce some very, very special guests this evening. John Laird has been a member of this community for a very long time. He served our community as a mayor and city council member in the city of Santa Cruz. He has been a leader in the fight for social justice and equal rights throughout the state and throughout the nation. When he was elected to the California State Assembly instantaneously, the speaker made him the chair of the budget committee during very, very difficult times in our state. John's leadership and intelligence helped lead the legislature and the governor and our state through very perilous times economically. When Governor Brown got elected to his third term as governor of the state of California, he immediately appointed John Laird Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency. The governor's duty at the time was to write the fiscal ship of state, get California's economy rolling again, get the budget balanced again, and he needed to focus on that 24-7. So he appointed John Laird Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency because the governor knew that he could leave that very, very important set of duties and responsibilities for stewarding our natural resources in John's hands, and it would be something the governor didn't have to worry about every day while he took care of the state's fiscal affairs. John Laird has absolutely met the challenge for the state of California and for the governor. It is a pleasure to introduce to you the secretary of the Natural Resources Agency of the state of California, Secretary John Laird. Thank you very much. It is great to be home. And on behalf of Fred, I apologize for the two of us committing the social crime of wearing a tie in downtown Santa Cruz in a basketball arena. I have three things I wanna talk about, but first, I just want to add to Anna Eshoo that we are here on the backs of work of people for 30 years in this community. And when you think of Gary Patton making sure there was no zoning for housing developments in this area, Andy Schifrin trying to figure out ways in the 1980s we could buy it, the trust for public land for taking it for what they thought was a year and turned it into a decade. Some of the philanthropic organizations whose names are here that gave tens of millions of dollars to buy it, a Marty Wormhout who held it together from the board level in the North Coast in that period, Neil Coonerty who continued that work in his two terms. We are here because of all that work. The opportunity we have tonight is because this community was the reason I love to live here, that acted for its future at every way and every day around Coast Darries. Now I have three things I wanna say. And the first one is, is I'm just pleased to announce that the state of California, the administration of Governor Jerry Brown endorses the designation of Coast Darries as a federal national money. That's significant in ways that sometimes are not evident as Secretary Babbitt knows. I represent the governor at the Western Governors Association. All the governors of the western states and at one of their recent meetings, they had a meeting with the president joining from the security room and the White House, the Secretary of Interior there and the big issue was, is they wanted administration to respond to local states whenever they designated a national money. And so that means this state's on record and that's a hurdle that they're over in looking at that decision about doing it. Secondly, since I've been there and the governor's been there, we're in the fifth year, there have been three designations in California already. There's been the San Gabriel Mountains, there's been the Stornetta property up in Mendocino County, there's been Fort Ord in Monterey County and frankly, there's three on the table right now. The bill was introduced for this and there's this effort for Coast Darry's. Congressman Thompson has introduced a bill for Lake Berryessa Snow Mountain for a national monument in that region. Yesterday, those waiting to testify in assembly hearing, they were passing a resolution in support of that and then Senator Feinstein earlier this week introduced a bill to create a desert national monument in the desert lands of California. And what's significant to talk about is that there is the long-term issue of dedicating that land, of designating a national monument, but they're completely separate issues that have to be resolved in the process. In the San Gabriel Mountains, the state aqueduct goes over it. There's a railway right of way. In the desert, there are sacred tribal lands. There's renewable energy. There's places where there has to be mitigation and permanent protections for desert tortoise and other lands. In all of them, there's a place about where will the interpretive center be? How will the access be? Will there in fact be certain trails? Are they just for people to walk? Are there mountain bikes? There are thorny issues that go along with every single designation. And so I just wanted to acknowledge that the designation is important. It preserves it for the future, but we have to resolve those issues as well and there will be a process and we just know that that's part of the myth. And third, we have the chance for partnerships here. This week, a commission that we appointed to look at the future of the state park system said that really we have to rely on partnerships in many ways and for those of us here, we think of partnerships, we think of things like Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks, which as a shameless plug for a local organization gives more money to the state general fund than any partner organization of any of the 280 state parks in California. But people don't think that it might be partnerships between different levels of government. If you look at Stornetta, it's right next to Manchester State Beach. If you look at Fort Ord, the Fort Ord Dune State Park is part of the land that was transferred to the state while the federal land went to the BLM. And if you look at Coast Darries, there were miles of beach on the coast side of Highway One that were given to the state park system while the inland park is what we're talking about for the National Monument. And we need to think differently. My friend and partner Jim Kenna, the state head of the Bureau of Land Management is here tonight. And we have to figure out ways that if people are stationed at the state park, maybe within the plans we have a management agreement where the state might run a part of the National Monument and the state park because you have trash collection or law enforcement or things where it makes no sense to have two systems. And if the feds are located there, then maybe it makes sense for them to do it and do it for the state park. Those partnerships will allow the money to go further and will allow us to have more for what we want for the future preservation of state parks. So my message is that we're just here as a state. We're here in support. We're here to help work out the problems and we're here to build partnerships to make sure that we can run this in perpetuity because as I was looking at the kids who couldn't believe that they were gonna have to wait until the end of the program to get the cookie, they were the ones who were thinking of for their kids and their grandkids going to Coast Darry's and enjoying it and wondered who had the leadership and the vision to do this. This is what it's all about. We just stand ready to be a full partner as a state of California in everything that we need to do to make this happen. Thanks for all of you being here. My goodness, how lucky are we that a Santa Cruz resident is the secretary of the Natural Resources Agency of the state of California. Thank you, John, very, very much. I had the very, very good fortune in 1988 to meet Bruce Babbitt. Bruce Babbitt was the attorney general of the state of Arizona. Under unusual circumstances, he became the governor of Arizona and then was elected in his own right as governor of Arizona. He and his family were pioneers of the West, settling in Flagstaff, Arizona and the northern part of the state. It gave that family and their successors and interest in the family of which Secretary Babbitt is a part, deep, deep roots in the West, understanding the environment of the West, the culture of the West, the challenges of the West. So when Bill Clinton was elected president of the United States, it made all the sense in the world to appoint the former governor as secretary of the Department of Interior. The person in the governor, in the president's cabinet, who is responsible for looking out for the public trust resources in the entire United States that belong to every one of us and to those children who were here earlier this evening. Rising to that challenge, Secretary Babbitt was able to re-energize, reinvigorate that public trust stewardship throughout our country. And every single time Congressman Sam Farr or Congresswoman Anna Eshoo asked the secretary the resources, the secretary of the Interior to come to our community and to help us out and to be responsive to us, the answer was yes. Secretary Babbitt set a standard for subsequent secretaries of the Interior that has been a very, very high bar. Secretary Babbitt was a founder of the World Wildlife Fund, is recognized nationally and internationally for the work he does to preserve, protect, defend and enhance natural resources throughout this world. Right now he spends an enormous amount of time in the upper Amazon Rainforest Basin preserving and protecting with the indigenous people those lands and that habitat, which are the lungs of the world. And so important that that is preserved and protected for us and a successful, absolutely essential part of the challenges that come with global climate change. It is a pleasure to introduce and to welcome back to our community former Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt. Thank you, Fred. I was starting to think, I hope I can make my remarks just a bit shorter than the introduction. I am, I've been asked today, how does it happen that you've come all the way to Santa Cruz County? And of course, the answer is, when Fred Keely says come, the only answer is yes. And it's really great to be back here because Fred has been saying that to me for 30 years now. It's time to come and I love to come. I think the spirit of this community is really incredible. And I must confess to you, it's really great after the passage of all of this time, we've been out of office a long time now, to come back and sense a little bit of nostalgia and kind of recognition. I was thinking about a couple of weeks ago, I was on an airplane coming from Washington, I think out to Oregon. It's early in the morning and I'm sitting there drinking my coffee and there's this person next to me reading the Wall Street Journal and he kind of looks over at me, goes back to his newspaper, kind of looks again, goes back and finally puts his paper down and he turns to me and he says, I got it, weren't you Bruce Abbott? Here we are, now I must tell you in all my time, coming to Santa Cruz County and indeed, all around the country, this is the very first time I've ever attended a pep rally for a national money. It's awesome. So in that spirit, in the warrior spirit, I want you to say after me, Santa Cruz Redwoods National Money. Okay, now the question I think of importance is, how are we gonna get there? What is the road to success? But I think I have two questions that are obviously part of it. The first one is, is this monumental idea the right fit for the Coastal Dairy proper? Now, I thought I'd better persuade myself. Normally, I simply pair it with Fred Keely, I read from them, but there are limits. So yesterday we packed up and drove up Liddell Creek all the way to the western down road, actually the eastern down of the property, up on the high end, and then walked up to the top, along one of the knife ridges that comes down, bushwhacking our way through a really pretty wild landscape in which my guides were continually assuring me that they knew where they were. I wasn't entirely confident. I finally emerged on one of those great marine terraces looking out above the Pacific. It's an incredible landscape, you don't get it from down below, it is really got granularity and topography, these redwood forests in the shade of shadows at these deep ravines. This great hillside's going up full of madrone, pine, and redwoods, and then you emerge out on this multiple terraces, stairs stepping down. And by the time, just about exhausted, I made a resolution, so I'm not gonna let these guys show me up, I am gonna make it down here under my own power no matter what. We made it, and I gotta tell you, it's an extraordinary, it is a unique landscape, there is nothing quite like it. This coastal area has no equipment anywhere in this place, the Mediterranean climate, the ecological zones that move up from the sea shore through the terraces up into the mountains are world class, period. So I've answered question one. No question, but the next one, I want you to bear with me while we look at it, because it's the harder question, and that is, how do we get the job done? How do we actually get a presidential proclamation for national money? Now, I gotta start off by telling you, it ain't automatic, it is, and there are lots of reasons, but I think the thing we need to realize is that the monument concept has really emerged into the national discussion about conservation, and I gotta tell you, there are a lot of communities all over this country saying, well, it's our turn for a national monument, and overstated a bit. Monument proposals are slowing down like snowflakes, not sure that's the right image to Santa Cruz County, but I could get the idea, and the queue lining up in front of a White House for perfectly good ideas are a lot of really important areas that do need protection, but no president, President Obama is not gonna simply stamp them out in sort of assembly line fashion. There are limits to how much a president is going to do, and that raises the question then, what are the chances for us in that queue? Where are we? We're at the front, the middle, the back, and how do we improve our position and get to the front of the line? In terms of the quality of the landscape, the importance and the ability to manage it for public use, for multiple use, the BLM is exactly the right fit. It all makes sense, but then we turn to the politics of getting up in that queue, and that is the reason that I think the word's gonna get back to this guy. Man, you ain't seen nothing like the public support for this proposal, you know? You go out here and you go to a warrior stadium and it's full of people. It's full of people saying, we want a mind. That, my friends, is the key. It's about public support. It's about getting together and getting this proposal in front of the president and saying, there's not gonna be a lot of dissension or controversy. It's not gonna be some obscure project that nobody's ever heard of. This is a lot of your friends in an important state with a lot of great congressional leaders and 54 electoral votes that have been delivered to him twice. And now it's time, and now it's time. So those are really kind of the interesting. What you heard from Anna Escher tonight is important. The fact that John Laird is here is important. The fact that Governor Brown is weighing in, equally important. And Sam Farr, and Arpal Thaley, his little machine, these are all tremendously important. And what that means simply is you're off to a fabulous start. This will be noticed and presidents are regular human beings. They love to do things that people appreciate, that are popular, that are really mobilized, a sense of importance to support them. These signs up here are fabulous. I just think it's really incredible that everybody is together moving on this. So I think what it adds up to is we're moving up in that queue. We've got a few more positions, I think, to move it up by continuing to come together, manifest your support, sign petitions. If you gave 10 bucks to the Obama campaign, call the White House and say, hey, I want to talk to the president. You know, well, you get the idea. Use all the lines and all the charisma that you've got. And I'm confident that we're gonna get there and I have a final request for all of you. And that is after 30 years of repeatedly coming back to this incredible community at the request of this guy. I hope when we reach the victory line that you will invite me to come back and celebrate with you. Thank you very much. This is a leadership and I did hear that you were running them pretty ragged on that hike, so you gotta give yourself credit for that. As you can see, we've got a panel of folks taking the stage. We have a few individuals here that we're hoping to have a conversation about to understand more about the national monument, what we should expect from its designation. And we do know that several people have submitted questions online and we will also take your questions this evening. So I think we've got hard circulating and we'd love to hear from you, but let me first introduce our panelists. We have here, Jane Parker, who is an elected member of the Monterey, forgive me, I'm on that Santa Cruz thing. The Monterey County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Parker represents the area of Monterey County that includes the newly created Port Orde National Monument. Give her a big round of applause. Thank you for coming to Santa Cruz. Next to Supervisor Parker, we have Dan Haley. Dan Haley is our Executive Director of the O'Neill Sea Odyssey, a longstanding and much-loved non-profit organization in our community that provides educational opportunities for school children out in the Monterey Bay Sanctuary. Dan's also the Chair of our Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument Citizens Campaign Committee. Gonna say that 10 times fast. So we welcome him and I'm glad he's here to see me. Next to Dan, we're pleased to have Rick Cooper. Rick is the Field Manager for our area of the US Bureau of Land Management and Rick has worked in our area for many years and he's a team of BLM employees responsible for federal lands on the center coast, including the recently designated Port Orde National Monument. So welcome, Rick. Thank you for being here. Certainly not least is Scott Schneider who's the Executive Director of Visit Montesino County. Scott's with us tonight to share his experiences related to the recent designation of the Point Arena National Monument. So we welcome Scott. I'm gonna start with our first question. This is for Rick Cooper. About the BLM. BLM. Does the BLM have the financial resources to plan, open, maintain and provide security for a monument of this size? And how many points of entry will the property have? I guess the simple answer would be yes, we have the capability. We currently manage 171 national conservation land units within California. We have four national monuments that we currently manage. We have a strategic plan to manage those units whereby conservation being one of the pillars of the strategy, whereby we're restoring and protecting the public lands that are placed in monument or national conservation land status. We also have a heritage which all of you got to experience. Today, an emphasis that we have is youth. And we want to engage youth through environmental education, volunteerism, employment. And that's our second pillar. And then our third is partnership to support stewardship. And so we are very much a community organization. We work with our local communities. We position our field office quite often in areas where they are strategically placed so that they're working with the public that uses the property and with the communities that live around the property. So as far as our ability to do it, yes we do. We have that ability. We can do it and manage a unit of this size. And the final question is- How many points of entry do you anticipate? Points of entry in terms of public access? Public access. Yeah, points of entry is public access. That's an open question for us. That's something that we will finalize with the community. We identified under interim management, possibly two areas of entry onto the public lands. But what we're doing at this time is we're looking at the corridors. And we're evaluating those. We're working with county public works to look at possibilities along the county arteries. We have Swanton Road, Cement Plant Road, and Bonnie Dune Road, which are the county roads that border our properties. And then we're beginning to look at possible entry points along the corridor of Highway One. We haven't settled on any at this time. We do have a pretty good working opportunity with right now with the county and with the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission that we're gonna look at at the south end of our property right now. So the question's still out as to how many we would have, but we will give thoughtful consideration to all of them. Thank you, Rick. The next question is for Supervisor Parker. When we're wondering how the Bureau of Land Management has worked with your community to come up with a use plan? Thank you, good question. We have, it's kind of a mixed answer. We have found the Bureau of Land Management to be very responsive, very interested in helping us as a community find those access points, figure out they're very interested in making sure that there are varieties of uses possible on all of the trails. And one of the things I would say that has been of great importance for our community is we have a lot of people who wanna get out there into this kind of wild and natural landscape. And some of the uses, some of the hikers might not be totally compatible with some of the mountain bikers, and then there are the horseback riders and what all of those different uses can do to and for the trails. And so we found that it was really important to convene groups of those users and have them work out between themselves how they wanted to manage some of those uses. We needed the Bureau of Land Management and other people who understood trails and the soils and all of that on the National Monument to make sure that if we were going to have heavier uses that the trails were actually capable of sustaining those so that you have the trails available and in good shape over time. So I would say the Bureau of Land Management has been a good partner. And I think in our community they've been greatly helped by the fact that we do have a public, our National Monument is proximate to three communities that have lower than the national average of open and park space for their residents. And so they are very interested in being able to get out there. And what that has meant is there are a number of other organizations in the community that are willing to step up and partner with BLM to help extend how far their resources go and how effectively they are responsive to what the community desires. Supervisor Parker. The next question is for Scott. Scott, could you speak to some of the positive and negative impacts of the Point Arena strenet and monument on your community? Sure, so our monument was designated less than a year ago by the president. I would say, and this is in total honesty there have been zero negative effects in the last 11 months. The positive effects have been broad. We have a small community, the City of Point Arena, which has about 400 people. We have some tourism related businesses there. Surfing is a big thing there as is here and also fishing. And we have a beautiful lighthouse there and the visitation to the lighthouse has been up 73% since the monument went into effect. That may startle some of you, that don't want a lot of visitors to come, but it's been the right kind of people. These are people that come and respect where they are. They respect the land, they respect the community, they appreciate the fact that this is a newly designated area and just feel honored and privileged to be able to experience it. And I'd say another positive effect has been BLM. We, like you, have put together a group, it wasn't for 30 years, to get this designation done. That group is still very, very active and in fact the hardest job we find is ahead of us and that is determining where people are gonna go to the bathroom. That is the most immediate need that we have and BLM is being tremendous with us about okay, where is it gonna be? I mean the lighthouse, it's one of the gateways, you have three access points to the national monument and the lighthouse is one of them and they have just been wonderful letting whoever come in and use their facility and whatever. Another one is signage. People drive right by on highway one and they don't realize that they're driving by a national monument. And so again, BLM is being awesome with us, putting, developing the right signage. You know, a visitor information area, the same thing. So our, the designation has been tremendous. It has put my county, which has no federal designated land, we have a national forest which is used for things that aren't legal. So this is the only federal designated land that we can promote and it's brought our community together and it's been, it's benefited all of us from people that live up to 100 miles away. And so I look forward to the development of it further in the right, smart way. Scott, this one is for Dan. You're leading our citizens campaign committee. After this kickoff, what types of things that are you gonna be doing in support of the monument and is the community lining up in support thus far? Thank you very much for that question. And before I start, I wanna thank the folks that are here tonight. There we go. Okay, you can hear me now? Okay, so we have an incredible campaign committee and we're gonna spend the next several months lining up support in Santa Cruz County and surrounding areas. I wanna acknowledge two people who, you haven't seen them too much except running around because they helped organize the event tonight. That would be our campaign manager, Steve Reed and our field director, Amanda Robinson. And if there's, or somewhere around, raise our hands. Of course, Steve. And it's important to point these folks out. There is a table here that the Semper Virens Fund has. There are pledges of support on those tables. Some of you have signed those pledges of support. Make sure that you take some of those home with you. We're also gonna be visiting your organization, your book club, your service club, take the petitions to your places of worship. We would like to talk to you, meet with you, go to your neighborhoods, get pledges of support signed. That's the most important thing. We would like to come to the White House with this package for a national monument, Santa Cruz Redwoods National Monument, with a large number of signatures and a clear show of public support. And we can do that with your help. So before you leave tonight, make sure to visit the table, see Amanda, see Steve, and together we can make this happen. This one's from you and we're starting to get to questions from all of you, so thank you for those. Rick, the question is, how is the BLM National Park Service going to control the pot farming industry to keep the parkland pristine? I'll repeat the question so that you can all hear. How is the BLM going to control the pot farming industry to keep the parkland pristine? The marijuana growers, illegal and... Well, we have been working with Trust for Public Land for a number of years to allow our staff to get on to the property and to do some inventory on the property. And at this point in time, and then we've had the property since April, we took possession, we've been out on the property, we've had rangers out on the property, we've had botanists out on the property, we've had our red-legged frog expert out on the property. I've been on there and caught my share of poison oak, but I've yet to run across any pot farms. That's not to say that they might not be there, but it's our policy if we find illegal cultivation going on, we will remove it and restore it. But as of right now on the 5,800 acres that we've recently acquired, I'm not aware of a growing issue there. Supervisor Parker, I think you might be able to best help us with this. This is a question from an 11-year-old youth in our community, and he or she was wondering if there have been studies on the increase or decrease in traffic flow on the roads on Highway 1. So in comparison, how would you assess what's been going on down in Fort Ord? Yes, I think the question of traffic and how do you handle the influx of people who on some level in the world come to enjoy this, is that we actually have multiple, there we go, we have multiple access points to our national monument that are miles apart from each other and that are accessed through various communities. So one of the benefits we have is we do have more than just one highway for access. And I think, as Rick was mentioning, looking at some of the other county roads where you can work your way in from a different angle will probably be important in your area. We have seen a significant increase in visitors to the national monument since it was designated. Our particular plot of land was, it was in BLM hands since the mid-1990s when the fort closed. And probably had about 30 to 40,000 visitors a year in that early time period. It grew slowly over time, but in the year that the monument was designated, there were already 100,000 visitors to the area. Many of them local, many of them from out of town. The next year, in one year of the monument being designated, that number doubled to 200,000. And in the next year, that was last year, it doubled again to 400,000. Now, what we do see many people parked in the, there are three sort of two quite official and a third very well-known access point to the former Fort Ord. In addition to that, there are probably half a dozen other places scattered around that people can access. So, so far, we have not experienced a great influx of people that are overburdening our roads, our neighborhoods at all. And even when you're out on the lands, there are all those people out there. Basically, once you get a few hundred yards from the parking area, you may not see any more people. It's so vast that people just go off. We have a lot of trails. We're very fortunate in that way. One thing that I would suggest, again, back to the idea of convening your stakeholders and getting the community involved, is you may want to figure out a process to have many, many people from your various communities sit down and figure out where you all feel the best access points are going to be and figuring out how you can have as many as possible because we hope that as you develop trails, and that's another thing you may want to get your public involved with, is where do we start developing trails? What kinds of trails? What's our priority? What's our plan? Because you've got a lovely expanse of territory here with not a lot of trail network yet. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for community decision making and involvement so that you can really very carefully think about how you're going to provide access without there being some undue and unpleasant impact on the neighbors and on the people who live in the surrounding areas. Thank you, Supervisor. I think this one's going to be for Rick again. What's going to be done to mediate the pressure on the state parks and the beaches of the North Coast that are already being taxed currently with litter and graffiti? I'm sorry. Well, I guess I would almost have to defer that question to the state parks. The, I think as we look at it, we are going to be working cooperatively with state parks. We currently are working cooperatively with them and sharing machinery that we use for restoration projects. But as we move forward, we're going to be cooperating with them on our law enforcement efforts that we have in the area. Our rangers have already started communicating together to learn how to access each other's properties, the state park rangers onto our property, our rangers onto their property so that we can back each other up if there is a need to. But I think our contribution to maybe helping along the beach is just that we will have a law enforcement presence patrolling the area and we will be able to coordinate and work with state parks to assist them as needed. This may be for you as well, Rick. What restrictions, if any, will private homeowners face in building, remodeling, or adding onto their current structures? There won't be a ordinance per se. Obviously, they have to stay within the bounds of their property, but beyond that, because it is a national monument, there won't be an ordinance as to roof styles or how many stories they put up or any kind of construction things. They would just have to follow county rules and ordinances in relation to anything they do on their property. It wouldn't, a monument designation would not affect that. Specifically for Supervisor Parker. By how much is a national monument designation increased funding? By how much has it increased usage and visitation? In terms of funding, I'm not, I'm actually not sure. I think there were, there were, what, assurances that there would be some increase in funding, but the caution that there wouldn't be just vast new sums of money coming in with this designation. We have been able to get some, well, we, the BLM has been able to get some grants. We've been able to go out for some funding jointly. This is where the community and the other interested organizations come in very, very handy because we, it's helpful to have an ongoing volunteer group to help with some of the trash pickup. We have of our area and probably like yours is very windy. So even if the people using the land are not creating litter, it comes from somewhere. And so, and it needs to be picked up regardless of how it got there. And having a regular, you know, set of volunteers who are willing to do that. A lot of the regular users do a lot of, they do a lot of sort of informal enforcement of trail use. They do a lot of pickup of trash. They do a lot of trail maintenance. And so that's where I get back to really engaging your community and the partnerships will be critical because there may be some funding, but it's usually true that the desires of the community to have improved access, improved trails, clear signage will outstrip any money that is coming to the community through just one source. We have student groups that can earn credit for some of their biology classes and various other natural resource classes and environmental classes. They help with some of the trail maintenance and, you know, eradicating invasive non-native species and all of that sort of thing. So the funding, I think there may be some increase, but as I say, I think the public's interest, your interest in having the National Monument serve you well will probably mean that we're all gonna have to put in some time and energy and financial support to help the BLM make that happen. In terms of visitorship, I think I mentioned we went from about 30 to 40,000 visitors in the mid to late 1990s, had a modest increase each year to the point where we had 100,000 visitors in 2012 when we did actually earn the designation and it has doubled each year since then. At some point it'll undoubtedly level off and so the usage, as I said, our area, our public is very interested in open space and really rallied around to show our support when it was time to encourage the president to sign that proclamation and they have not flagged in their support since then. They didn't just sign a piece of paper, they're using the facility, taking care of it and doing what's needed to partner with BLM. So it's really been an ongoing, very positive and strong relationship. Thank you, Supervisor. We're gonna do a few more questions so I think everyone's getting ready for a cookie right about now and then hopefully our panelists will stick around for a few minutes to finish up if you have any questions that didn't get answered. This one's for Scott. Did the public, including residents, businesses, ranching and agriculture work together to persuade BLM and the president to designate your monument and where their opponents and why? Yes, so Mendocino County, it's hard to get anyone to agree on anything and surprisingly and shockingly, we didn't have any dissension when it came to designating these lands. We also have a lot of Native American culture and history on this land, a lot of rivers and streams that need protection and it was a family's land, it was a rancher's land and they created a great MOU with the rancher family. The family still grazes cattle in certain areas of the national monument per the agreement so it works out great. So we had unanimous community support and I would greatly encourage all of you that are working so hard to get this done to try and attain that because when Secretary Jewel comes and hopefully she will come at least once, I have two pieces of advice. The first piece is she will ask even though you don't want her to, she will sit up here or wherever the hearing is and ask. I've heard from so many of you that support this, it's wonderful, I walk the lands, it's beautiful, raise your hand if you don't support it and your goal is to make sure no one in that room raises their hand. Right, you laugh but it's attainable. National Monument designation is the best way to make sure that your community doesn't change. It is the best way to make sure that those lands and your neighborhoods and your traffic and your roads are in the best condition they can be for generations to come. By this designation, it gives BLM, it gives the status to BLM which has millions of acres and millions, hundreds of thousands of properties that they need to fund. National Monument status raises the priority of those lands that much more. I'm not sure how it works with politics or any of that but once you have a National Monument, BLM has a higher priority to take care of that land. So if you're worried about traffic, if you're worried about anything else, this designation is probably the best way to guarantee that it won't change. My second challenge to you is when Secretary Jule came not once but twice to the point of arena lands, I don't know how we did it, we paid them a lot of money but when she was on the bluffs, there were lots of whales breaching. So if you're a visitor bureau here, if they have enough budget to pay the whales, get them to breach when she's walking. But you know, in all seriousness, we were successful because the entire community got behind it, the kids were a big part of it, the Native American community was a big part of it. And we stressed economics, we stressed jobs, we were selling this when the recession was finally starting to turn around. And you have a huge tourism economy here that I think I wrote it down, over 8,000 jobs in this county are from tourism. They earn over $200 million. So visitors bring in over $45 million in taxes to this county, to this community that helps offset your property taxes, all that stuff. They help pay for your police and your fire and your roads and all of that stuff. And those are the kinds of messages at least two or three years ago that the White House really wanted to hear. And I imagine they still want to hear those messages. And so pay attention to the people that don't want this to happen. Have them use us as a resource, use forward word as a resource. Because this is really, when you come down to it, they want this too, they just don't see it. Thank you, Scott. Mr. Haefle, you're gonna work on the Wales for us, right? I will. Last question and we'll direct it to Dan and it's gonna be music to yours. How can we help and is there a website? That's a very good question. SantaCruiseRedwoods.org is the website and it's a great place to go to learn about the coalition. It's a great place to go to learn about the site and it's a great place to go to express your support. And I want to follow on a little bit of what Scott just mentioned in that I want to thank the, both the Davenport North Coast Association and the Board of the World Bonnie Dune Association. They had a wonderful op-ed piece in the Sentinel last Sunday which said we liked the idea of the National Monument, we're excited. Here are some issues that we need to work on together. So the campaign committee is committed to having some town hall meetings and we would like to build support and make sure that this is something that the entire community can support and we know will be a benefit for the community. So we'll be doing that and encourage everybody to go to the website and again before you leave this evening to visit Amanda who is running around here somewhere or Steve, sign up, help us out. The next 10 months we're going to be visiting every person we possibly can to get your support for this monument. Let's give a big round of applause to all of our panelists who are taking the time this evening and hope that you can stick around for a few minutes afterwards if people have additional questions. All of you are welcome to stick around. Thank you so much for being here. There are cookies somewhere. And finally before you leave, let's give a huge round of applause to Secretary Babbitt for taking the time to visit. Very appreciative of your time and all of your time and now you may go eat cookies. Thank you.