Quote:
This is trite amusement for many, please know that I understand that, but I want to find a way to briefly communicate how important this issue is to me.
First, the officer was polite, professional, and earnest; I respect him, his job, and his department. He patiently phoned this in to a supervisor and followed whatever departmental guidance was available to him. It's my understanding that the major issue with surfing in that area is, essentially, that people call 911 about it, and that call volume produces a workload they would like to avoid. They would prefer to avoid it by way of me not surfing, I would prefer to avoid it by people minding their own business and ceasing to report my safe and legal recreation to the police. Failing that, I would like to avoid it by the police recognizing me, my vehicle and board, and knowing as an agency that my paddling a surfboard is safe and legal, and not a police matter...and all reports should be treated like any other unfounded, mistaken report of a safe, legal act.
More though, I have a pressing need to communicate something else...I am not Jeff Spicoli or Gidget. I am a 35 year old veteran of 14 seasons of wildland fire, fire-aviation, and wildland fire dispatching. I made a difficult decision to quit firefighting after the "Iron 44" helicopter crash killed 9, and the "dutch creek" incident killed an 18 year old on his first fire, this in a season when my arthritis was reaching a level that made digging and cutting fireline agonizing. It has been a long, difficult road of nursing school, crewing a ship in the pacific northwest, and driving long-haul trucks to get back to my hometown of Marquette and start over. In some very traumatic and stressful times reconciling my depression, arthritis, and PTSD, surfing has been more effective than any other therapy.
Surfing, usually alone, in the big, powerful, frigid water of the north Pacific for years while I lived on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington was my meditation, my physical therapy, and my escape from a difficult life where I struggle with depression and chronic pain. It remains all of those today. I get a sense of relief and rejuvenation when I'm paddling that surfboard that is unlike any other thing available to me. It is physical, psychological, and spiritual therapy. When it's treated as some sort of trifling amusement it saddens me to my core. When people want to make it a police matter and have me removed from the water it saddens me to my core. Like many, I'm barely making a living in Marquette while I search for a better job. I live a simple, sober, and ethical lifestyle; I genuinely want to always be on the right side of the law, on the side of justice and decency. What have we become, as a society, when my innocent, harmless, therapeutic outdoor recreation is subject to police monitoring?
I hope you will read and understand this, or perhaps publish it for others to see. This is an issue close to my heart and I'm begging you to handle it with respect.
Quote:
I take it for granted that there is a natural, longstanding right for people to freely access navigable water at their own will. This Public Trust Doctrine has been passed down from the Roman empire through the magna carta and into the vast majority of modern civilizations. At the same time, there is a great institutional momentum toward identifying and eliminating risk, even the perception of risk, in these modern times; thus, some conflict is inevitable. I just hope we can all take a moment to clearly mark the line between what decisions are publicly regulated and what is left solely to the judgment of legally competent adults. I believe an adult's choice to challenge nature, be it climbing, or skiing, or diving, surfing, hiking, skydiving...whatever...is beyond that line; I wish to clarify and highlight that line so the process of getting out to enjoy these activities isn't stained with bureaucracy, or ever mistaken for criminality. The underlying principle is that there are unknowable gains to society that come from people having these experiences on their own terms. There are unquantifiable levels of personal growth and strength and wisdom that ultimately branch out to benefit everyone at large in a huge variety of subtle and intangible ways; if we start eroding free access to nature, even (or perhaps especially) challenging aspects of nature, we stand to lose valuable parts of our collective human spirit we can't even adequately describe.
If the commission feels an adjustment is needed, I support any needed adjustment(s) in protocol, policy, and/or procedure which would also allow unabated access to the shoreline for surfers but also allow dispatchers and/or officers a streamlined process to efficiently disregard complaints of surfing with an absolute minimum of workload for officers and dispatchers.
hopefully this all dies down soon.