March 4, 2020: Board Minutes
DRAFT MINUTES
March 4, 2020 Annual Meeting
5:30 PM / Colorado Discover Ability offices
In attendance:
Board Members Eve Tallman (secretary and minutes taker), Marc Kenney, Randall Chapman, Matt Lisenby, Paul Stoner.
Also in attendance: Rich Connors, Ashton Johnston, Bradley Edwards, Jim Black, Fritz Nuffer, Kent Pease, Brian Montag, Jaime Odin.
Prior to calling the meeting to order, attendees toured the facility with Michele Rehl, CDA’s office manager.
The meeting began with introductions. Eve announced that Jesse Zacher, President, was unable to attend due to family illness.
Matt moved to approve the minutes of the February, 2019 meeting. Randall seconded the motion and the minutes were approved unanimously. Eve stated she would post the finalized minutes shortly.
Garrett Mitchell, Treasurer, was absent so there was no Treasurer’s Report. Eve estimated there are about $10,000 in the bank account and described the success of the new joint membership option with the Access Fund which was first suggested by Kim Lisenby and which nets WCCC approximately $200 per quarter. The upcoming expenses of insurance and the Department of Local Affairs tax-exempt fee were mentioned, which total $875 for the year.
Progress on the Sunday Wall footbridge was discussed and it was agreed that a joint effort with a NOLS volunteer crew in collaboration with Jesse would be planned for whenever the next NOLS crew is in town, perhaps the autumn.
Randall set the date for the next Dynamite Shacks cleanup for Saturday, May 16 and noted it was not Mothers’ Day weekend.
WCCC communications were discussed. An improved website was requested and various points of local contact were brought up. Ashton suggested Gear Junction and Rich suggested there could be a WCCC newsletter opt-in at the climbing gym during climber registration there. Brad Edwards established a WCCC Instagram account while discussion ensued. Randall described options for upgrading the web presence of WCCC with a move away from blogspot to a new custom domain. A communications committee of Ashton, Fritz and Randall was established.
Escalante access was discussed at length. Kent described some history of climbing in the canyon, including a recap of interactions with the ranch manager over the years. Ashton reported she had studied private property boundaries as delineated on GIS. The main concern expressed was increased recreational users and the low priority of climbing in the BLM’s resource management plan. Speeding vehicles was a problem for the ranch owner. Brad is an administrator on Mountain Project and he agreed to post a message about slowing down and reducing impacts on Mountain Project. Signage at the Cabin Wall was agreed to be needed. The communications committee agreed to draft signage language and Eve offered to reach out to Jesse, who has had communications with the rancher in the past, to see if signage would be acceptable to the rancher. In summary, it was estimated that 40 people per day in high season visited the three walls and that social trails, camping impacts and driving off-road were major concerns.
Access at the Sun Towers in Unaweep was discussed. Eve noted she had been working with the Access Fund and the land owner with no clear path forward at this time. No trespassing signs were reported but may have been missing.
A clean-up of the Rock Garden area in Unaweep was mentioned as a successful collaboration with the BLM.
The Monument has a new superintendent. The new head law-enforcement ranger is a climber and it was reported that Jose knows him well. Bat closures on the lower Monument slabs was brought up. As discussed last year, a climber display in the visitor center would be good. Eve offered to reach out to monument personnel to work on this and Ashton volunteered to help.
Fritz offered to head up an effort to draft signage for Escalante.
The meeting was adjourned.