As many of my friends know, I was very sad about the Griffith Park fire.Don't get me wrong. I fully appreciate how lucky everyone is that no one was hurt and I think the firemen were amazing to save all of the historic structures and homes. I just love the park and I hated to see it scarred.
Staying out of the park the last month has been difficult. It is my favorite regular hiking spot. I am the first to tell people how wrong I think it is to try and sneak into the burn areas as the land needs to heal...and it doesn't need us stomping all over it while it does. I also share in the frustrations held by many that we are be kept out of large portions of the hills where there has been no fire.
Conspiracy theories abound that the reason the majority of the park is closed is to make it easier for the powers-that-be to push through a new master plan allowing for more paving and deveoloping of the land. It is getting harder to call these theories crazy. There is definitely a group of people that would like to see Griffith Park opened up for more commercial uses. Parking lots, restauraunts, paved roads...the list goes on and on. All of these plans backed by arguments that talk about opening the park up for everyone and helping it to pay for itself. The problem is, of course, that the plan calls for a destruction of the very thing it is "developing".
Things change, time marches on, but sometimes you have to let things remain. Not everything should change. Not everything has to be fully accessible to everyone. Not everything has to be able to generate money for the city. When you are blessed with an urban wilderness as special as Griffith Park, it is the responsibility of the City of Los Angeles and the residents of the city to protect it.
http://savegriffithpark.org/
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