[Slightly expanded from my post in the older thread]

Starting in Jan Hancock Timber is going to require a $75 per person per year permit to walk onto the property around the NF Snoqualmie to access the river.

Hancock Timber got paid $22 million King County tax dollars in 2004 for the
development rights to this property. According to Larry Phillips, Chair of the
Metropolitan King County Council, part of the reason for that was so that "This
part of the Cascade foothills will remain accessible to everyone". (quote taken
from Hancock's own press release http://www.htrg.com/news_09_02_04.htm). Ron
Sims, who was King County Executive at the time said "Since the county will own
the development rights, it will get the benefit of preserving open space while
not having the expense of maintaining the land."

Charging $75 to walk onto the property is not a reasonable definition of
"accessible". It is reasonable for them to charge a maintenance fee to people
driving on the road, but not to pedestrians. I have emailed Larry Phillips
(larry.phillips@...) and also my KC council rep to complain about
this, and it'd be nice if some other people did too.

Thanks Merly for bringing this up. Very interesting, and it makes this new $75 fee pretty unreasonable. I will be complaining to my King County rep and I hope others do too.

Here's the letter I just sent:

 

Hi Mr. Phillips,

I live in King County District 4.

I'm a frequent user of the Snoqualmie Forest. I hike onto the property managed by Hancock to get to the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River.

There is a new user fee starting next year for the simple privilige of hiking onto this public land.

I understand that Hancock may have a right to charge for drive-on right. They do have to maintain the road, after all. But how can they have the right to charge me walk-on access? I'm not impacting their use of the land for logging in any way.

 I would appreciate a response about how you feel about this new restriction. I think it is important to preserve the citizens' right of access to our public lands. I hope you will take a position against this new fee.

Thanks,

Thanks for the heads up Meryl, Phillips knows where I stand on this now. Spread the word to your non boater friends. This concerns anyone that takes or thinks about taking a step outside.

darn... that doesn't sound good at all.  

Another possible way to get access, is to find out who manages Hancock and contact them to try and establish a relationship with them.

Meryl, Fiddleyak, MokelumneMan-
Appreciate the clarity brought forth by your posts. This is worse than I had previously thought. It is almost downright hostile.

Mr. Grinch- you raise an excellent point. That's quite a chunk of change and it leads me to wonder if they are still recieving tax dollars for this deal.