2025-02-03 Jim McMahon Testimony

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energy collisions on H-19 and also cause additional traffic backups on H-19 as the north bound traffic from that high attempts to make a left turn onto Indian Tree road. This issue has been raised with the District Engineer- State Department of Transport in 2021 - well before the additional traffic proposed by this application. • Indian Tree Road is also a gated community. A gate across this road presently exists near the junction with H-19. The gate is presently closed at night. In any case, the all night traffic which occurred during the latest event did cause some traffic backups unto H-19 as well as damage to the gate. Also, providing the gate access codes to 100s of visitors raises security and privacy concerns for the people living on the road. We would like all of the above issues to be addressed to the satisfaction of all property owners located along the road as a condition before any Special Permits are issued to the dominant easement parcels. Two disparate proposed uses in a single application It's very rare to see 2 completely unrelated uses contained within a single Special Permit application. The 1st being for a single annual "Falls on Fire" festival and the 2nd being for continuous/daily use as a heavy equipment baseyard. It does appear to be contrary to the public interest to allow this practice for submittals as each proposed use has different impacts and concerns. Presumably, such complex applications increase the workload for the county staff and the cost to the taxpayer. It is therefore unreasonable, in my opinion, to combine 2 or more unrelated uses in the same application. The remainder of my testimony will be organized according to each use. Use #1 : to host an annual four (4) — day event with overnight camping AKA "Falls on Fire" Firstly, it must be said and it is my opinion that calling a less constrained version of the more famously known annual "Burning Man" event that takes place on Public (BLM) land in a remote corner of a Nevada desert a "camping" event is probably not the most accurate description of the proposed use. This is not a situation where a group of friends set up a traditional campsite, roast marshmallows over a campfire, and sing Kumbaya. There are reasons why the applicants are seeking to host this event in a secluded private location and not in public spaces that are normally considered adequate for other festivals. Mostly these reasons are centered around the need for"radical self-expression". Or in other words, the planned activities for the event would probably be illegal within the public spaces, or at least offend the prevailing social mores. I am not concerned about what takes place between consenting adults on private property. But I do care about the local neighborhood impacts and the spillover impacts to the general public. This includes noise arising from all-day and all-night activities, impaired drivers traveling on our roads both private and public, smoke from numerous campfires, cooking fires, and the burning of