County Rebuffs Yosemite Bus Plan by Charles McCarthy The Fresno Bee -- June 14, 2000 MADERA--Madera County supervisors spurned National Park Service advances Tuesday, saying the federal plan for preserving Yosemite was flawed and that they could whip up a better blueprint on their own. After hearing a presentation by the Park Service of the Draft Yosemite Valley Plan, the board said it would go ahead with delivering a letter to Yosemite National Park's superintendent that outlines its dissatisfaction. The supervisors then said they would invite the public to a June 27 meeting at which Madera County will put together its own plan for the national park, which sits on its eastern doorstep along Highway 41. The Yosemite Valley management plan, unveiled in March by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, would radically reduce the number of automobiles allowed into the heart of the park by reducing parking spaces and beefing up a shuttle system. Supervisor Gary Gilbert, who represents the tourist-oriented Oakhurst and Bass Lake areas, compared the Yosemite proposal to federal plans to close national forest roads and President Clinton's declaration of Giant Sequoia National Monument. "This is a complete conspiracy by this administration ...that this is going to go down as a Clinton legacy," Gilbert said. Supervisor Gail Hanhart McIntyre took a less political view, saying her grandmother was born in Yosemite National Park. Hanhart McIntyre urged park representatives to be careful not to make Yosemite "worse by trying to make it better." The Park Service representatives came to the supervisors meeting Tuesday to present their management plan, entertain suggestions and build political support for the proposal. Instead, the supervisors weren't swayed in their intention to fire off a letter to park supervisor David Mihalic that expresses their opposition to the proposal. "Yosemite deserves better," says the county's letter, signed by board Chairman John V. Silva. "We are especially concerned about the process under which the current plan was developed and subsequently question its validity." the letter tells Mihalic. Under the draft plan, expected to cost approximately $343 mil-lion to implement, the Interior Department would reduce 1,500 parking spaces in the valley to a consolidated 660-space lot at Yosemite Village. The department would then build three shuttle-served park-ing lots on Yosemite's exterior ring at Badger Pass, El Portal and Crane Flat with a total of 1,550 spaces--a net increase in parking. Yosemite officials have said the reduced valley parking would reduce day-use traffic in the Valley by 60% on peak summer days. From the parking lots, shuttles would run every 12 to 15 min-utes. The letter says that while the county supports protecting the park's natural beauty and re-sources, it disagrees with scheduling the park's bus-shuttle program ahead of a management plan for the Merced River. The river plan, which has been tied up in courts, won't be resolved until July 31, well after the public comment period on the Yosemite Valley plan closes, the letter advises. "Such a timeline severely com-promises the quality and effectiveness of both plans by short circuiting and failing to embrace input from the public you serve," the letter says.