Petition to eliminate the Yosemite big wall permit system

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

He’s not saying they’re coupled together, he’s making a point about how reservation system could go once the bigwall permit system goes to rec.gov (which nps has said will happen in their last town hall)

Sure, I get that, but it still clouds the issue somewhat (for any gov types reading MP).

Anonymous Cowardwrote:

Gotta love the boomers who think their bank account will get hacked by giving out their email address.

Gotta love the cowards who throw rocks from behind anonymous user names...

I remember when the permit system was started a year or two ago, they talked about it on the Run Out podcast and explicitly encouraged people to ignore it. I wonder what effect that had on the situation? Were there lots of people just ignoring it and then getting caught? Maybe people could just keep ignoring it? 

You couldn’t ignore it if you had to park your car overnight in the meadow. 

Not Hobo Greg wrote:

As if $180,000,000 wasn’t enough to build a relatively simple website, those scumbags at Booz Hamilton make tens of millions more every year by collecting reservation fees that should otherwise go to our public lands. Every half dome cables permit, every campsite, every backcountry permit, they get a piece of it.

You got to look at who benefits from selling a govt contract like that. It’ll make you think twice the next time you go to vote. 

Anonymous Cowardwrote:

Gotta love the boomers who think their bank account will get hacked by giving out their email address. Just flag it as spam once, and voila, done.

Imagine not having 10 different burner emails

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/booz-allen-hamilton/recipients?id=D000032046

Here’s a list of senators and representatives that have accepted Booz Allen Hamilton dollars. If your senator or representative is on that list, contact them and explain your concerns. If they aren’t on the list, still contact them.

Generally congressional staffers will report the number of calls and emails they get regarding topics, so it’s important to a). Make your position clear (“I oppose private entities profiting from permit fees for public lands”) and b) include key words so that it gets included in the counts (public lands, national parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, permits, access fees, recreation, recreation.gov, Booz Allen Hamilton)

This issue is much, much bigger than Yosemite big wall permits. The federal government is absolutely capable of setting up a reservation system in house, and Booz Allen Hamilton is making a killing without adding any value.

Do we have any hackers here that’d be willing to take one for the team? 

Not Hobo Greg wrote:

As if $180,000,000 wasn’t enough to build a relatively simple website, those scumbags at Booz Hamilton make tens of millions more every year by collecting reservation fees that should otherwise go to our public lands. Every half dome cables permit, every campsite, every backcountry permit, they get a piece of it.

I build large software systems for state governments and 180M is an absolutely insane amount of money for that system, off by at least an order of magnitude.

Last project where I was lead of something similar in size we had a full team of about 18 not including state employees assisting the effort and it was a 6 month build with 18 month maintenance and the grand total to the state including all the subcontracting and cash grabbing was somewhere in the 4-5M range

Eli Wwrote:

The federal government is absolutely capable of setting up a reservation system in house, and Booz Allen Hamilton is making a killing without adding any value.

Sadly they probably are not capable. The way these companies get hired out is actually pretty complicated. There is an approved vendor list, a request for proposal, and someone has to have the project budgeted on the gvnmt side. The approved vendor likely doesnt actually do the work and is what’s called a “reseller”. Etc etc.

But to the point, they typically aren’t up to date with today’s technology and are maintaining old systems and aren’t capable of supporting projects like this.

pph213wrote:

You couldn’t ignore it if you had to park your car overnight in the meadow. 

But now you can. A climbing ranger even told me that. 

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

 

clarification

John Sigmonwrote:

I build large software systems for state governments and 180M is an absolutely insane amount of money for that system, off by at least an order of magnitude.

Last project where I was lead of something similar in size we had a full team of about 18 not including state employees assisting the effort and it was a 6 month build with 18 month maintenance and the grand total to the state including all the subcontracting and cash grabbing was somewhere in the 4-5M range

Just a reminder: that $182M is for a 10 year contract. 

I'm not defending it at all as $18.2M/year is still far too much, even with maintenance, servers, and bandwidth. I agree with it still being off by an order of magnitude.

Marc801 Cwrote:

Just a reminder: that $182M is for a 10 year contract. 

I'm not defending it at all as $18.2M/year is still far too much, even with maintenance, servers, and bandwidth. I agree with it still being off by an order of magnitude.

It’s called “capitalism”, Booz is good at it and paid accordingly. 

Tradibanwrote:

It’s called “capitalism”, Booz is good at it and paid accordingly. 

More specifically, it’s called “unrestricted capitalism” or something like that. Just because it’s how this country works doesn’t mean it’s right or ok. 

Tradibanwrote:

It’s called “capitalism”, Booz is good at it and paid accordingly. 

Its literally not. Government contracts are just about the opposite from the free market espoused by capitalism.

It is privatization of things like National Parks. 

Tradibanwrote:

It’s called “capitalism”, Booz is good at it and paid accordingly. 

Yeah it really isn’t.  If it were capitalism the eligible vendors wouldn’t be numerable on a couple hands.  Companies would have bid based on that.  And the buyer (the owner of the land being reserved) would have an incentive to maximize their profits in this.

Edit to clarify: maybe it’s “capitalism” but it’s far from a “free market”

John Sigmonwrote:

Its literally not. Government contracts are just about the opposite from the free market espoused by capitalism.

That’s a common misconception.

The industrial complex is an integral part of the system.