Hey guys, guess what?

I'm extremely pushy and I tend to get my way.

I'm a bulldog, OK. I'm a GOD DAMN bulldog.

So take that and stick it in your off-highway vehicle hating pipe; breathe in that sweet, sweet PM-10 polluted air; and stuff your "stipulated air pollution abatement measures" right up your everlovin' environmentalist ass!

Wooo! Yeah!

Oops. My bad. My intense thoughts got away from me. I was channeling my inner Ted "I Tend To Get My Way" Cabral, a commissioner on the Off-Highway Road Motor Vehicle Recreation Commissioner whose outer bulldog came out during a rant about the San Luis (pronounced "looeey" if you're Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Acting Deputy Director Dan Canfield) Obispo County Air Pollution Control Board (APCD).

He was fed up with this little county air board's opinion about the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA). But he promised commission meeting attendees on March 1 in Palmdale that he would choose his words wisely.

"I don't want to add any fuel to the fire, so I'll be careful what I say here, but I will do everything within my power to make sure that the park not only exists but gets managed in a responsible manner," Cabral said. "What's been done there is stupid, OK."

Wooo! Way to go Cabral! Way not to throw any fuel on the already blazing bonfire of anger and resentment that surrounds any topic that has to do with recreational vehicle use on the dunes! Especially, all of this dust that gets kicked up and carried up to The Mesa. On March 12, those people got a little notice on their phone's weather ap: "Unhealthy air quality for sensitive groups." Because it was windy AF! Ooh, it chaps my metal.

Anyway, Cabral went on his mansplainy rant before the commission he sits on received an update about where things stand with the dust mitigation plans that the Oceano Dunes is working out with the APCD.

"At some point, that local air board has got to be told to stand down. And It's like, I know they have a job to do and stuff," Cabral 'splained. "The air board, in my opinion, thinks they have too much power, and I think that they need to be pushed back against."

The APCD is a local regulatory agency, brosef! One with oversight and jurisdiction over the air (just in case you needed a reminder about what they are in charge of). Also, if all of those Trilogy peeps showed up to all your meetings to rant and rave about dust giving them cancer, you would probably do something about it, too!

Some of them actually yell into the microphone. They also write a lot—like a lot—of letters to the editor.

Instead, the people who show up to commission meetings are dune-riders, like Jim Suty with the Friends of the Oceano Dunes, who rant and rave about losing land to recreate on because of these sensitive groups who don't want to breathe in particulate matter on days like March 12.

"Time and time again, we are promised things we don't get," Suty told Off-Highway commissioners on March 1. "Time and time again, we lose."

Well Suty, whose group basically told New Times to pound sand on March 11, you're not the only one losing, pal. The California Department of Recreation and Parks literally can't win.

When Hearst San Simeon State Park released a proposal to put another camping area on the coast, people accused them of trying to mess with the elephant seals. Which, really? Those elephant seals act like they own the whole coast! Showing up on all the beaches that are supposed to be for humans because Trumpty-Dumpty shut the federal government down. Who do they think they are?

And this recent Public Works Plan for the Oceano Dunes and Pismo State Beach that State Parks claims is the result of public input? You could have fooled the environmentalists, who are losing their collective damn mind.

State parks is thinking that it may want to put a campground and southern entrance to the dunes riding area right next to Oso Flaco Lake. The proposal includes taking 120 acres of agricultural land that is also part of the SVRA and converting it to that developed campground and staging area. Oh boy. I'm going to hang onto my keys for this one, because this fight's off to a raring start!

The Sierra Club's Santa Lucia Chapter Director Andrew Christie called Oso Flaco the worst possible spot in the entire Oceano Dunes SVRA to put a campground and staging area. Duh!!! WTF were you thinking state parks? It's like you decided: The environmental community already hates us, so let's propose something that will really give them an aneurism!

Any longtime SLO County environmentalist will tell you that they saved this "pristine" body of water four decades ago from loud, noisy, gas guzzling, exhaust-spewing motor vehicles decades ago. Those same environmentalists have also been asking State Parks to establish a southern entrance to the dunes for years to take the pressure off of Pier Avenue in Oceano and Arroyo Grande Creek. And now that the option is on the table, the resounding response is to tell State Parks where to shove their plan.

Oy. The department is definitely not a bulldog and it almost never gets what it wants. Δ

The Shredder is a GOD DAMN bulldog. Send comments to [email protected].