Flyfunston

We need your help to open Mt. Umunhum!

Mt. Umunhum is the fourth highest peak in the SF Bay Area, situated in the Santa Cruz mountains south of San Jose. It has proven to be a great flying site often found to have a convergence. It's not uncommon to see cloud streets from Mt. Um heading many miles south!

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District is finalizing it's plan for the mountain so we need to work fast. (like within the next week)

Please encourage the MROSD to allow hang gliding and paragliding from the top of Mt. Umunhum. It would help, in your own words, you tell them how great a flying site it is and what it could do for you and our sport, anything that it true for you.

Please download the feedback form attached to my post on hanggliding.org: http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.ph ... 973#207973

It is a PDF with fields that you can fill out on your computer, then snail mail it, email it, or just compose your own email to the address on the form itself.

Don't wait, do it today!

Thanks very much!

For those that don't have a HG.org log-in to download the form-

mt.up@openspace.org

Sample email from Bubble Boy:

My name is XXX and have lived in the South Bay for near 30 years, much of it on the lower flanks of Mt Umunhum. I currently live on Bear Creek Rd. and wake up every morning to the sunrise over this peak.

I attended the public meeting a few weeks ago in Los Gatos and was really happy to see such a crowd of people attend to show their support of your future plans for the mountain. I was also pleased to see what a great job your group did presenting the various possibilities going forward.

Per the instructions at the meeting, I am emailing you to make a suggestion regarding a future activity for the mountain -- unpowered human flight (hang gliding / paragliding). I have been a long time member of the flying community here in the South Bay and we have negotiated permission to regularly fly from quite a number of area locations. These include Mt. Tam, Mt. Diablo, Mission Peak, Ed Levin County Park, Fort Funston (GGNRA), Marina State Beach and even one location administered by the MROSD -- Windy Hill (Thanks btw).

Our local clubs have work hard over the years and have developed excellent relationships with the local landowners and administrators of these locations. We're confident that if included for the mountain, this activity would be both within the low impact goals for the site and also enjoyed by many more folks than just the pilots.

Some of the very positive aspects to be considered:

Our activity is very low impact: our feet are on the ground for only a few steps before silent flight.

We require very little infrastructure: we fly most of the local sites without any special considerations other than wind indicators.

We would be a very low cost activity addition to the mountain: our local clubs have a strong 'we pay our own way' mentality.

Our community has a strong local work ethic: we regularly contribute to work parties helping with improvements for our local sites.

Please consider adding this activity to those approved for Mt. Umunhum as you formulate your use plans.

Thanks

There are two MROSD meetings coming up, one is important, the other not so much.

The first meeting is on November 18. This is an open house and mostly for public information, feel free to attend.

The second meeting is the one where we want a big turnout. We need to muster the troops for this one!

Public Hearing and CEQA Scoping Meeting

Attend our Public Hearing to provide input as the Board considers approval of the Mt. Umunhum Project Description and to discuss potential environmental impacts of the project. The meeting details are:

When: Thursday, December 9, 2010, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Where: Historic Del Monte Building
100 S. Murphy Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
RSVP: Please RSVP for this workshop

http://www.openspace.org/plans_projects/mt_umunhum.asp

Just a quick reminder of the Mt. Umunhum meeting Thursday Dec 9th. (see above post)

Please meet up with Tom Low to coordinate a show of hands when he stands up to speak for us!

The MROSD is in this stage with Mt. Umunhum: "Preparation of Refined Public Access Plan and Environmental Documents"

The next stage will be in April, 2011: "Release Environmental Documents for Public/Board of Directors Review"

I'll post the dates for upcoming public meetings soon as I know when they are!