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Meeting Minutes, News, & Articles

Blossom FAQ:

5/14/2014

2 Comments

 
Q: Where can I land now?     Can I land on the nob just above the now closed LZ? 

A: No , not at this time.


All "Side Hill Landing" would need to be in or above the future proposed Open Space area. From memory it is from the horizontal fire break / trail line up to about 100-200 ft below launch and the Bail-out. The upper line starts about where the current lower wind streamer pole is below launch.
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For the most up to date Blossom Site info, and each time you fly, check the Blossom Site Guide as this information changes frequently.  Each site guide page is now dated with the revision date if there has been a revision after our move to the new website.
2 Comments
Doug Bearmar
5/23/2014 02:44:36 pm

What is the club doing to reopen the LZ? How can I help with the clubs efforts to reopen the LZ. I miss the LZ!

Reply
Steve Rohrbaugh link
5/23/2014 07:06:18 pm

Hi Doug,

Thank you for your offer to help.

Following the Landowners current wishes to close the LZ and putting in place measures to satisfy his future use requirements is key to getting the LZ reopened. To further help with this, Tom K and a few others are working on verbiage and content for a site protocol sign to also be posted on launch. This should be in place within the next week or so.

The best thing you could do is to help spread the word about needing all pilots adhere to the site protocols as listed on the Blossom Site Guide found at: http://www.sdhgpa.com/sites-guide.html (http://www.sdhgpa.com/blossom-valley.html) . Having local pilots take ownership of self regulating the site to the Landowner’s wishes is an essential part of our reopening the plan.

Once we feel that we could reliably be in compliance with the Landowner’s use requirements, we will approach him with our new protocol plan and see if we can come to a new understanding.

More specifically, what has the SDHGPA specifically been doing?

Upon receiving a verbal notice from the Landowner, the SDHGPA formed an action group consisting of the current SDHGPA board members and 4 Frequent and long time respected HG and PG local pilots (2 HG & 2 PG). Three instructors currently utilizing Blossom were also consulted and included in many of the conversations. The main focus of this group has been to discuss our path forward and how we might better regulate the site to the Landowner’s requirements.

During these past few weeks, we have also maintained an open communication with the landowner via phone and email communications.
This was our last letter to the Landowner on 5-13-14 in response to his written notice of closing the LZ:

“ Hi Art,

We respect your wishes to close the LZ and acknowledge your email. In hoping to maintain your trust and the possibility of working with us to reopen the LZ at some time in the future, we took the following actions after your phone call to Bill H. on 4-29-14:
We sent out two emails to all of our current and past members; Posted to our news Blog, Twitter, SDHGPA Facebook page along with several others (HG San Diego, PG San Diego and Torrey Pines); and updated our site guide. On 5-9-14, we also installed the following notice sign on Launch: (http://www.sdhgpa.com/uploads/2/6/0/2/26023409/3280947_orig.jpg)

Links to notices and updated Site Guide:
http://www.sdhgpa.com/minutes-news--articles.html ; (http://www.sdhgpa.com/1/post/2014/05/blossom-lz-closed-until-further-notice.html)
http://www.sdhgpa.com/sites-guide.html ; (http://www.sdhgpa.com/blossom-valley.html)
https://www.facebook.com/SDHGPA

With the possibility of working with you to reopen the LZ at some time in the future, we have also begun laying out new policies and practices to how we could better self regulate this site with a renewed interest to do so by the “Local Pilots”.

In talking with many of the regular “Local” Blossom pilots, they feel that enforcing self regulation is possible, even with the past long history of being a non regulated site. Key to this is that the regular local Blossom pilots are willing to take ownership of managing this renewed effort.

Prior to this there were many arguments about our “legal” ability to enforce requiring memberships without a written Recreational Land Use Agreement in place especially if no Landowner with legal right was enforcing these down in the LZ. Up until the past 10 years, this site had a long history of being a non regulated site, and changing that mindset has been many years in the making. (You can read some of these sentiments and history via the comments to our blog post (http://www.sdhgpa.com/1/post/2014/05/blossom-lz-closed-until-further-notice.html) .

Now with your enforcement down in the LZ and making your desires to enforce non compliance very public; we think things could work much better for compliance to the site protocols. Our plan would be to post a “Landowner” Site Protocols sign on launch. That coupled with the regular Local Pilots pooling together for informing all on launch of these protocols and the ability to have pilots sign memberships and wavers on the spot if not current members.

Until we feel we have a full plan in place and until we reach a new understanding with you; our posting and informing “all pilots” that your LZ is closed to all will remain in effect.

Please let us know if you have any question or comments.

Regards,

Steve Rohrbaugh, SDHGPA President
[email protected]
"

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