Watchung Reservation - Call to Action (10/20, 7pm)

thegock said:
There is a "Ticket Blitz" underway in the Watchung Reservation until further notice. The Union County 5-0 are acting at the direction of Bridgette Kelly.
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anyone ticketed, please bring the printout of the ordinance to the court along with the county map. The ordinance refers to roads paths and sidewalks, (does not mention mtn biking or trails) and the trails are on county maps as trails and have been for years. Ask the court where are the paths/sidewalks you were accused of riding on on the county's own map. they won't be able to find them! it's called hoist on your own petard !
 
Also if anyone has been ticketed and is fighting it contact me I have some opra request stuff that might be useful re: origins of the ban and legal questions.
 
TheLonerider said:
Also if anyone has been ticketed and is fighting it contact me I have some opra request stuff that might be useful re: origins of the ban and legal questions.
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Or we could have a giant Grand Fat Fondo around the playground circle with bluetooth speakers on every bike and @pearl:

I got this soundtrack nailed doe.
 
One of our ticketed friends has been having a heck of a time trying to pay it. It doesn't show up in any of the records. Says number doesn't exist. Maybe because the ordinance is so fuzzy it can't be enforced? I'm not really in the mood to find out for myself.
 
That ordinance is like bigfoot, its hard to get a handle on...

seriously tho are they ticketing folks? I did an OPRA request Dec. 2015, and they admitted to only giving one ticket then in the last TEN YEARS (and it wasn't properly filled out)
 
Yes. Definitely handing out tickets. Several in our group have gotten them. I commute through the rez everyday and the increased police presence is very noticeable. They've even been giving road bikers a hard time.
 
This thread is off on a tangent again and doing nothing for the cause other than potentially weakening our position. Fortunately it comes from a tiny minority of our user group, just as the tiny group who opposes our request slings outlandish stuff our way. I am confident that the policy makers can make the same distinction.

Reminder: We are negotiating legal mountain biking in Watchung Reservation. Well over 2 years of work. Riding it is currently illegal. Please help spread the word and keep your posts positive. Want to vent? ken@jorba.org

Thank you.
 
Ken,

I haven't ridden Watchung since the new signs went up. But I don't think pointing out that there are serious questions about the "ordinance" and its applicability to mtn biking -- or how the ban was imposed -- hurts the cause. Let's face it, the county imposed the ban in a backroom meeting with no public input in '95 by unelected employees, then somehow found an old ordinance from 1983, about "roads, sidewalks, and paths" which neither mentions mtn biking, nor contains the word trail -- when the trails in question are marked on county maps as trails and not paths or sidewalks and have been for years. And then somehow figured, oh, this bans mtn biking.

Heck, in my very first OPRA response the county wrote "The freeholders did not act to ban mtn biking". So.... I guess that old ordinance wasn't intended to do so? Or it was and they just forgot to put anything about it in there -- and were wrong in their OPRA response?

Doesn't anyone else find all this strange?

Or that the county spokesman interviewed for the 2014 Star-Ledger article on the subject didn't know why mtn biking was banned, and mentioned no law or ordinance, even though overturning the ban was the whole subject of the article? Or that one ticket they admitted to giving in the last ten years from my Dec 1, 2015 OPRA request, where in place of the law or ordinance violated, the officer just wrote "bike"? Was that because even the COPS didn't know if/what the ordinance was?

I'm not saying go ride there. But I am saying as we work with the county let's not whitewash the past. We are here now because of what was done before, and a lot of it doesn't pass the damned smell test.

That said let's all work to move forward so we can ride and have fun. But let's not lie to ourselves about the validity of this policy. At best its questionable. That's the price of conducting government in the shadows.

P.S. - I'd love to hear the rationale behind hassling road bikers. My initial response to that isn't printable here, but starts with "what the ..."

Lonerider
 
I just want the petition signed to help evidence that many people, even Deplorables like me want to ride their bikes on public land. The Grand Fat Fondo with Bluetooth sounds was an attempt at humor. Sorry if it was not helpful, Ken.

#freewatchung

Sign and share the petition above on Change.org and tell the government that we want change.
 
The road bike thing is just a miscommunication. I'd imagine some of the cops don't know the difference between a road and mountain bike, they just see a bike and assume you were in the woods. And to further confuse things, the bike on all the signs is a road bike. I've ridden though on both and haven't been stopped yet.
 
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