This topic contains 44 replies, has 14 voices, and was last updated by 
Team Northwoods 10 years, 4 months ago.
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Good luck hopefully it is a successs
All opinions, comments, and useless drivel I post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the WGA BOD.
@commanderusn wrote:
For those of you that can attend…following is information about the meeting tomorrow.
The Commander
The Dane County Park Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed 2015 Parks Permit Fees at their meeting on Wednesday, September 24, 2014, 12:15 PM in Room 354, City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Madison, WI 53703. The public hearing will begin at 12:30 PM. If you are unable to make this meeting, the Park Commission will be accepting feedback until their October 1stmeeting. Feedback, and/or questions may be sent to [email protected], or mailed to the Park office at 5201 Fen Oak Drive, Room 208, Madison, WI 53718.
I attended the hearing and I had invited Woodlandnomad to attend as well and he did.
There were no Geocachers present with the exception of Jay and myself. So when it was my turn to talk, I introduced myself and gave a short background of geocaching. I then stated my purpose was to remove the fee for placing caches in Dane County Parks and provided convincing reasons to remove the fee: Only county collecting a fee…initial reason for placing the fee was now invalid and the hindrance it caused to people wanting to place a cache. I then opened myself up for questions.
The Commission had many questions which I answered for approximately a half of an hour. The vote on fee increases and hopefully fee removal will not be until the October 1st meeting. The feeling I was getting in the room was that they didn’t want to change the fee without a corresponding change in policy. I am planning to recommend to the Parks Director that we lift the policy directly from the State Parks caching policy and implement that as the policy for Dane County Parks.
Will keep you all posted but I think we will be successful.
The Commander
Thanks Steve and Jay I would have gone also but had a doctor Apt at 1:00. Glad to hear things went well and hope for the best.
I believe that the Commander represented us well. I left the hearing with a sense that the board was very willing to work with the WGA. It also sounds like they have had great success with working with groups like the WGA in the past. At the same time they were cautious about opening the staff up to complaints and increased demands on time investigating inappropriate caches. It sounds like the policy began when someone stashed pornography in one of the parks and posted the coordinates on the web. Steve told them that this was not a geocache, but at least one board member felt like this could be a real ongoing problem. The same board member expressed the thought that Dane County’s policy of permits and fees might be forward thinking and a model for the rest of the state. At this point in the meeting time was running out, or I would have pointed out that as I have filed permits multiple times that the policy does not appear very forward thinking to me. The form is not available online. I show up in person and ask for the form. The secretary has to remember where on the computer the form is located. Then she prints it out and stands waiting while I complete the form. I then pay my money and she puts the form in a file. At which point I am free to place my cache. Nothing is reviewed to this point, I don’t know if someone later reviews it or not. If they do, I see fee system complicating things. If they do review after the fact and determine the cache is not in an appropriate location they now have to tell the person that they have to pull the cache which they have paid to place. From my perspective, the existing system makes me pay, ties up staff time, and the only thing the county gets out of it is my contact information. Steve pointed out that there is already a review process through geocaching.com and the review process is able to accommodate the wishes of the county–all without cost to the county and tying up staff time.
If you care, they are still taking public comments for the next week. The Commander has the address in one of his earlier posts
Feedback, and/or questions may be sent to [email protected], or mailed to the Park office at 5201 Fen Oak Drive, Room 208, Madison, WI 53718.
Thanks for going Steve and Jay! I would have but I was tied up with school all day.
I should have mentioned that our case was greatly helped by the fact someone from the Madison Parks Department was in the audience. After Steve mentioned the history with Madison and geocaching, the board turned to him and asked for his impute. It was a very ringing endorsement of geocaching.
I just sent the parks system an e-mail voicing my support. Along with some of the points mentioned, I explained CITO to them and how it can help beautify the parks.
Nicely done guys
Following the signals from space.
What do they use your taxes for in Dane County?
No public response but I agree with just the question.
A little concerned about how much Darren seems to be relying on WGA.
the Reviewers would receive the Off Limits locations and nix anything in sensitive areas prior to publication (I would assume) but to hold WGA “responsible” for maintaining a list of caches and review sites seems a bit much. please realize that once (if) this gets the fees dropped and the placement of caches on Dane County properties begins to increase, not every Cache Placer is going to be a WGA member and be privy to this arrangement. While we wish to work with Dane County, the “WITH” part does should not mean WGA must be the GeoPolice in the matter.Thanks Steve for getting the ball rolling on this though it does look to be some additional work to be ironed out.
Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.
They just want to make sure that when a geocacher falls out of a tree that the WGA gets sued and not Dane County. I’m sure any lawyer will tell you to back off on any arrangement like this.
@labrat_wr wrote:
A little concerned about how much Darren seems to be relying on WGA.
the Reviewers would receive the Off Limits locations and nix anything in sensitive areas prior to publication (I would assume) but to hold WGA “responsible” for maintaining a list of caches and review sites seems a bit much. please realize that once (if) this gets the fees dropped and the placement of caches on Dane County properties begins to increase, not every Cache Placer is going to be a WGA member and be privy to this arrangement. While we wish to work with Dane County, the “WITH” part does should not mean WGA must be the GeoPolice in the matter.Thanks Steve for getting the ball rolling on this though it does look to be some additional work to be ironed out.
He doesn’t understand the workings of either geocaching or the WGA. I will NOT get us embroiled in some legal MOU and will explain to him exactly what you said…that not all geocachers are members of the WGA and we are NOT the geocache police. Thanks for your note and hopefully I will get this resolved shortly.
The Commander
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