On February 21, and again on March 4, 2025, the Yosemite Chamber of Commerce sent an appeal to Congressman Tom McClintock to be a voice of reason on behalf of our Yosemite gateway community, leading up to the 2025 tourism and wildfire season. Following is the letter and the complete list of local businesses, nonprofits, and individuals who added their names to this letter.
February 21, 2025 and March 4, 2025
US Congressman Tom McClintock
5th District, California
2256 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Copy: Tuolumne County District 4 Supervisor Steve Griefer
California State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil
Visit Tuolumne County Executive Director Lisa Mayo
Dear Congressman
During a year we should be celebrating 175 years of economic development and growth, Tuolumne County and specifically, the Highway 120 gateway into Yosemite National Park, is facing a fifth year of financial hardship imposed by external forces. Four of those years are directly attributed to attempts by the National Park Service to limit public access to Yosemite in an ever-changing set of rules about reservations. While visitors from all over the US and around the world plan their precious holidays, their inability to reserve campgrounds, cabins, or even to know if daily access reservations will be necessary is already deterring them from choosing Yosemite National Park and the gateway communities as their 2025 vacation destination.
Add the effects of this administration’s most recent slashes to staff. Media coverage is fueling fears that without proper staffing, Yosemite will be a chaotic scene of mounting garbage, locked restrooms, unmaintained common areas, serious damage to the local environment and wildlife, and worse, human injury and death through lack of emergency services. The negative impact of these rising fears is already being felt by our tourism-dependent businesses in the form of reservation cancellations. And the impact on locally-based NPS and US Forest Service employees is now evident in the heart-breaking stories from passionate, dedicated, talented people–our neighbors–for whom working on our public lands is an honor and a calling.
In August of 2023, you visited Groveland for the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, addressing representatives of thirty-plus local organizations, businesses, and agencies dedicated to promoting and enabling public access to our wilderness playgrounds. During your visit, you reaffirmed as senior member of the House Natural Resources Committee, and an advocate for public “use, resort, and recreation,” your personal dedication to “restoring public access, restoring good management practices, and restoring federal government as good stewards of public lands and good neighbors to surrounding communities.”
On behalf of the businesses and residents of, and visitors to, our Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park gateway communities, we implore you to work to restore adequate staffing for Yosemite National Park and ensure an appropriate level of fire and emergency services coverage on all publicly-accessible lands here. Without your support, many of our local small businesses will be forced to close after so many years struggling to survive. Without your support, local unemployment will skyrocket putting more strain on social services. Without your support, there will be no progress on forest management and inadequate firefighting resources during the summer wildfire season. Insurance, if it’s even obtainable, is beyond affordable for most businesses and property owners and the impact of uncontrolled wildfires could be devastating to this community.
Please be a voice of reason and an advocate for your constituents whose livelihoods and quality of life depend on tourism and protection of our precious public lands.
Respectfully,
Yosemite Highway 120 Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors
Shirley A. Horn
Patricia Epp
Andrea Lawrence
Along with the undersigned:
John Stone, Mountain Leisure Center with 11 tenants, and my Corporation, Mountain Leisure Enterprises Inc.
Lee Zimmerman, First Light Resorts (Rush Creek Lodge, Evergreen Lodge, Firefall Ranch)
Robert Boyer, Boyer Construction
Rachel and Andrew Sabatine, Around The Horn Brewing Company
Marty McDonnell, Sierra Mac River Trips
Tomas Hernandez Jr., SoulBeGood LLC
Venkat Alapati, Serenite Hotels including the historic Groveland Hotel, Narrow Gauge Inn (Oakhurst, CA), Amador Hotel (Pioneer, CA)
Joel Kell, Firefall Ranch
Krystal Patel - Inn at Sugar Pine Ranch, Yosemite Westgate Lodge and Buck Meadows Lodge
All Outdoors California Whitewater Rafting
Harriet Codeglia, Southern Tuolumne County Historical Society
Mat Galvan, Chairman, Tuolumne County Chamber of Commerce
Natasha Eaves, Executive Director, Tuolumne County Chamber of Commerce
Lori Reynolds, The Grove Mercantile
Tyler Kidd, MarVal Food Stores
Joe Pluim, Plum Construction Inc.
Finn Horsley, historic Hotel Charlotte
B. Don Smith, RockOn Propane Tank Covers
J.R. Rollins, Rollins Tool Solutions and Trail Less Traveled Bike & Gear
Dharma Barsotti and Eliote Durham, Top of the Trail Tea & Coffee
Dwight Follien, Groveland Trail Heads
Audrey Prouse, ROOFBB Charity, Groveland, CA
Patti Beaulieu, Helping Hands Thrift Store and Furniture Barn of Groveland (in business for 43 continual years)in downtown Groveland)
Tom McDonnell and Liza Dadiomov McDonnell, Lillaskog Lodge
Chelsea Garcia, Mountain Sage Coffee
John and Tonie Kiefer, Kiefer Insurance Agency
Geri Wright, Yosemite Pines RV Resort
Shirley Horn, Horn Family Enterprises, LLC
Claudia Day, doTERRA Wellness Warrior
Sparker Mejia, Romulus Development
Maggie Bean, Maggie Bean Glass
Patricia Sumiec Epp, Summers Media Group
SIGNATURES ADDED AS OF MARCH 4, 2025
Wendy Collins, employed by Groveland Pizza Factory, community volunteer
Gloria Jane Young, full-time resident/owner, Pine Cone Performers
Shirley A. Brasesco, Pine Cone Performers, ROOFBB Charity, community volunteer
Larry Jobe, Yosemite Area Realtors, full-time resident/owner, business owner
Brad Crawford, Umpqua Real Estate, full-time resident/owner, business owner, community volunteer
Linelle Susan Marshall, full-time resident/owner, Pine Cone Performers, community volunteer
Linda C. Hall, PhD, part-time resident/owner, employed by private enterprise
Quentin Macdonald, part-time resident/owner
Kathleen Malloy, full-time resident/owner, yoga instructor, community volunteer
Patricia Gibson, Chez Gibson, part-time resident/owner, community volunteer
Laureen Borup, Real Estate Broker, full-time resident/owner, business owner, community volunteer
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