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Show B11 Reorganization Hearing m Sm Imu Drew a Lame Crowd of Protestors A proposal by the Department De-partment of Interior's Bureau of Land Management, Manage-ment, tentatively scheduled sched-uled to take effect July 1 of this year, which would downgrade the BLM District Dis-trict Office inMonticello and move headquarters for this area to Price, drew a standing-room-only crowd to the San Juan County Courtroom in Monticello Tuesday. The large crowd, almost al-most entirely opposed to the BLM proposal, listened lis-tened for two hours while a number of local officials offi-cials made comments. Chief spokesman for San Juan County, Commission Com-mission Chairman Calvin Cal-vin Black, spoke at some length on the economic impact on his county, and the possibility of reduced re-duced effectiveness in the management of vast BLM lands in his area if the proposal becomes effective. Grand County Commission Chairman D. L. Taylor also spoke, stating that the move would be a great blow to both Moab and Monticello, Monticel-lo, and would further contribute to the consolidation con-solidation of political power in the Price area. "This would be a big loss to Moab and Monti-cello," Monti-cello," Commissioner Taylor staterl. The proposal would result immediately in the cutting of one-half of the permanent staff at the Monticello BLM District Office, and would leave only ten people there to staff an area office, similar si-milar to the one now operated op-erated in Moab. The action concerning Grand and San Juan residents, re-sidents, is part of statewide state-wide proposal being initiated ini-tiated by the Bureau of Land Management, to reduce re-duce the number of District Dis-trict Offices from eight to four, which would coincide co-incide with the Districts covered by Associations of Counties. State BLM Director Paul Howard conducted the Monticello meeting, and listed reasons rea-sons his Department had come up with the realignment realign-ment proposal. The Utah Field Organization Organ-ization Study was initiated initi-ated by the State BLM Director with concurrence concur-rence of the Bureau Director Di-rector to assess the adequacy ade-quacy of the existing field organization in terms of its ability to respond to new programs and emphasis em-phasis concerning the national resource lands in Utah. Planning for the study began in May of 1974, with extensive development de-velopment and analysis of program and workload data. The field data-gathering process was accomplished ac-complished during the month of August with considerable input from the public, state, local and other Federal governmental gov-ernmental bodies and agencies ag-encies and advisory groups. Subsequent efforts ef-forts have centered around the analysis of the data gathered from the many field sources and the development of a viable organizational proposal, Mr. Howard stated. A number of responsibilities respon-sibilities and shortcomings shortcom-ings of the BLM structure struc-ture in Utah under its current makeup were outlined in the study. The BLM, the report stated, needs to develop close working relations with local government; needs a responsive field organization, organ-ization, needs to improve on-the-ground management, manage-ment, and all these will place greater responsibility responsi-bility and capability at local BLM Offices, which will be staffed up to handle han-dle those areas of concern con-cern through reorganization. reorgani-zation. Management criteria, recommendations, and benefits to be derived from the reorganization were also outlined at the meeting. The proposal, according accord-ing to the report, would "reduce the number of offices designated as District Offices from eight to four. However, no offices will be closed, but rather redesignated in title. "The Southeast District would then consist con-sist of Carbon, Emery, Grand and San Juan Counties, with headquarters headquar-ters in Price. The District Dis-trict Office would provide pro-vide the resource staff skills, operations, support, sup-port, and administrative staff support throughout the District. The existing Monticello District would be redesignated as a Resource Area headquarters head-quarters and staffed for area management responsibilities. re-sponsibilities. The Resource Re-source Area Headquarters Headquar-ters at Moab would continue. con-tinue. Lee Wansgaard, area manager in charge of the Moab Area Office, stated that public comment com-ment on the proposal must be received by the Bureau by February 28. Those wishing to comment com-ment should direct those comments to Paul Howard, How-ard, Utah State Director, Bureau of Land Manage- j ment, 125 South State, P.O. Box 11505, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111. |