The subject of camping in Green River parks isn’t something new.
Over the years, this seems to come up every so often from various groups. Whenever this issue comes up, unless it is for a small group like the Boy Scouts, it is turned down.
Once again, the question is coming before the Green River City Council. This time it’s from members of the Muley Fanatics Foundation. They would like those attending the Mansface Mountain Music Festival to be allowed to tent camp in Evers Park and park their RV’s or camp trailers at the city’s rodeo area.
We are fine with small groups being allowed to use city parks for camping, but allowing it for a big event such as this, isn’t something we can support at this time.
We support MFF and everything the organization is doing to raise funds to for its many projects, we don’t support this idea of tent camping and parking RV’s and trailers at the rodeo arena.
Let’s address the Evers Park concerns first. Our concern is while even though this is only for a few days, this prevents residents from using that park and the baseball field located on it. Also, what about the nuisance it could cause for the people in that neighborhood. There are so many unanswered questions and even though we know this is in the beginning stages of discussion, we aren’t convinced all of our questions can be answered to our comfort.
Here are just a few of the questions we have. Can the city guarantee these campers will be quite at a certain time? Will the Green River Police Department officers be pulled away from their regular duties to patrol the neighborhood frequently? How will this impact the Splash Park? Will we have a bunch of tent campers showering off in the Green River or the Splash Park itself? These are all things that must be considered.
If there is alcohol being served at this event? If so, that raises even more concerns for us. Drinking after a concert usually continues, and while we’d like to think the campers would just return to their tents and go to bed after the concerts, we think that’s not going to happen. Drinking will continue at the campsites and this in itself will cause a lot of problems.
As for the RV camping portion, as campers we don’t think that would be the best place to park a camper. Usually when we are camping, we are looking for a grassy area with trees, a fire pit, table and a couple of vault toilets.
As for a fire pits, while those can be used as residential properties, can they be used on city property? If not, that’s something the campers will have to be told.
Just parking an RV in a dirt lot usually isn’t what people have in mind when they are camping and if this isn’t explained to them prior to coming, we doubt they will return.
As for the argument that all of the camping spots are filled due to the National High School Finals Rodeo, the simplest solution would be to host the music festival on a different weekend. MFF already stated the event suffered last year due to hosting it during the same time as International Day and now they are going to try and compete against an even bigger, week-long event?
As for cleaning up the areas after the campers leave, we are wondering who will be tasked with that. No matter how clean a camper tries to leave a camping space, things are left behind.
Finally, we think this decision would set a bad precedence for the Council. If they approve this request, then they will have even more camping requests to review. They will find themselves under pressure to approve those requests as well or it will look like favoritism.
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