The Spring Mountains ECHO

THE SMA IN 1998

By Pat Fitzgibbons, SMA Vice-President

The SMA is ready to push projects in 1998. We are beginning a new calendar year and will be working with the U.S. Forest Service to formulate an organizational plan for 1998. Unfortunately, some of our goals are the same as they were the past two years and have yet to be accomplished, but we are making progress.

We continue to work with U.S. Senators Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, and with U.S. Congressman John Ensign, to obtain monies for the development of a new Visitors Center and Museum for the Spring Mountain National Recreational Area (SMNRA). In addition, we are attempting to have our congressional delegation obtain monies to triple the U.S. Forest Service presence in the SMNRA. We feel that the present Forest Service staffing is about one-third of what it needs to be. For example, we have one Forest Service law enforcement officer for 316 thousand acres, with well over four million visitors per year!

Our other continuing goal, which we certainly do hope to accomplish this year, is that of developing an interpretive trail. A tentative site for the interpretive trail has been selected and inspected and we need to work with the Forest Service in obtaining approval to begin the actual construction. We will select the points of interest and construct signs and tape recordings and post them at strategic points along with trail. The plan at this point is to make the trial "self-guided" and to have explanatory signs, tapes and literature available. The trail probably cannot be kept open in the winter due to snow, but it could be open for six months of the year.

The next meeting of the Spring Mountains Association Officers and Board of Directors will be held on February 5, 1998 at 5:30 p.m. at the downtown offices of Fitzgibbons & Anderson, 214 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas. All members of the S.M.A. as well as all other interested persons are invited to attend. Most Board of Directors meetings last until 7:00 p.m. The main topic on the agenda will be the future of the Festival In The Pines.