“Earlier this morning, the Chamber supported AB 374 in the Assembly Government Affairs Committee. This bill, pushed by Assemblyman David Bobzien, came about because of threats by some rural counties to start charging local permitting fees and increasing costs for the Burning Man festival that comes to the Black Rock Desert every summer. This bill would prohibit any local government from interfering with a federally-licensed event on federal land. We strongly support this concept because of the enormous positive economic impact that Burning Man attendees have on our region.”
AB 374 began life as a different bill, introduced by Nevada Senator Pete Goicoechea and State Assemblyman John Ellison, intended to allow grazing in Federal fire restoration areas as a means of limiting the growth of cheat grass, which creates repeat fire hazards. Under the leadership of Bobzien, that bill was amended with some canny provisions aimed at getting the State and County authorities’ hands out of Burning Man’s pocket.
Assemblyman Bobzien – who also sponsored AB 304, a previous bill that clarified and simplified permitting for fire performers – had this to say on the subject:
“I for one prefer to keep politics away from Burning Man. My own experiences on the playa are thankfully partisan-free, and AB304, a bill that enjoyed broad-based support from Democrats, Republicans and Governor Sandoval, was a true example of non-partisan problem solving to help constituents. And by the way, these are constituents who are part of a culture with economic importance in northern Nevada- it’s estimated that the Burning Man festival alone pumps $15 million into the local economy every year.”
As AB 374 has gained support, the authors of the original bill have moved to distance themselves from it, and now openly oppose it. Goicoechea and Ellison expressed their opposition to AB 374 during a conference call last Friday.
“If you have an outdoor activity on public lands of over 1,000 people, then the county has no involvement or enforcement on that activity at all,” said Goicoechea. “It all goes to the Feds. We’re not prepared or ready to let our police powers go. Technically they’d be on the hook for all the emergency services but wouldn’t have the ability to enforce any of their laws or public safeties. It’s just another intrusion into the County and the State’s rights when it comes to any type of enforcements on public lands.”
Pete Goicoechea and John Ellison – Photo: R. Dalton
John Ellison agreed, noting that the bill as rewritten will have an affect on the ability of every County in the State of Nevada to regulate large festivals held on Federal soil. “If we open Pandora’s box and we allow this to happen, this could be on every event on public lands,” he said.
The full text of AB 374 can be found at the Nevada State Legislature’s website.
In an unrelated story, astronomers report that the stars over Nevada have spontaneously rearranged themselves to read “FYD PETE & JOHN.” Authorities at NASA were unavailable for comment.
There’s just a hint of mayhem in the story behind what shouldn’t be a terribly noteworthy change of plans for the fourth annual Forgotten City festival this year.
The event is the Las Vegas Burning Man Regional‘s yearly Memorial Day weekend outing. A month ago, the usual suspects in organizing Forgotten City announced that the event would not take place in 2013, due to a new baby in the family.
“I was actually looking at a site in Pahrump, Nevada for something else at the time,” says Dirk Schmidhofer, the organizer who has taken on the task of keeping Forgotten City’s fire lit this year. “I started calling it St. Elmo’s Fire, but too many people thought of the TV show, and of Sesame Street. Damian was mentoring me then, and I asked if I could use the Forgotten City name. He said ‘Sure, and here’s all my website stuff, too.’”
Dirk Schmidhofer at FC3. Photo: Adam Shane
With the Las Vegas Regional in his corner, Schmidhofer sought a permit for the event in Pahrump, Nevada, a small and economically-challenged town about fifty miles west of Las Vegas.
On March 1st, 2013, Selwyn Harris wrote an article in the Pahrump Valley Times about the Pahrump Town Board approving plans for FC4 to be the inaugural event at the new Pahrump Fairgrounds. Town Board members voted 5-0 to approve the event, but waited for a contract review from the town’s attorney before giving the official go-ahead.
“We went back to the previous location,” says Schmidhofer. “Bootleg Canyon near Boulder City, Nevada. Boulder City Parks and Recreation has permitted Forgotten City the last two years, so they know the organization; we obtained a permit as we had done in previous years, and we’re selling tickets as we speak for Memorial Day Weekend.”
The Pahrump Fairgrounds, it turns out, are a bit unfinished.
“They just bladed off 27 acres,” Schmidhofer told me. “They put in a very large asphalt parking lot at one end. It’s a brand new fairgrounds and they’re doing it as they get money; they are working on more funding, and want to put in soccer fields and so on.”
In order for Forgotten City 4 to burn in Pahrump, Nye County wanted Schmidhofer to either pave the fairgrounds, or lay down a two-inch bed of gravel wherever there would be vehicles parked.
“I was actually planning on renting a water truck, a la Burning Man,” says Schmidhofer, but according to the County, “water is not considered a dust palliative for the purposes of complying with that law.”
And then, according to a press release from Pahrump’s town manager, Bill Kohbarger, “A Nye County Sheriff’s Office representative contacted Burning Man advising them that everyone who gave away alcohol needed to obtain a liquor permit through their office.”
Meanwhile, Schmidhofer was taking a drubbing from citizen attendees in town board meetings over things that seemed to make no sense.
“Although we felt we were there with plenty of time, some felt we were springing this event on them. Others thought I was trying to skirt the process, even though I had spoken with everyone I could find or get a recommendation to talk to. I missed a face-to-face with the town manager, and they really zeroed in on that. He didn’t seem to mind though. Someone was upset because they thought we had the tickets printed up already; I guess they’re still in the 20th century there. What we have is a website created by the founder of Forgotten City a couple of years ago; a few minor changes, and it’s ready to sell tickets online — everything is e-commerce, but they didn’t understand that.”
According to Schmidhofer, the town board meeting attendees seemed to ignore the fact that the group had done this event before, and already had fully-developed and tested plans for security, fire safety, EMS, etc. “One person specifically said at the microphone that twelve weeks was not enough. . . but I had been working with the fire chief on all of it, and he even vouched for us at the meeting.”
This only looks like Satan worship. Photo: John Marsh and Kelly Curtis
Reader comments on the related articles in the Pahrump Valley Times were worse than vitriolic. One Pahrump local logged in as “Desert Cat” called the abortive festival at the fairgrounds “your little Burning Man freak show” and exulted over the cancellation: “Best of days for Pahrump. You see, we succeeded in putting a stop to an event that would have drawn the likes of you and yours to our town.”
In the end, it’s hard to say what went wrong. The Pahrump town board seemed willing enough, but was Nye County angling for Burning Man to surface their new fairgrounds for free, and even pay for the privilege? Were they simply trying to keep the festival out? Was it just a few cranky conservatives among the locals, making waves?
Schmidhofer’s take on it is that the town board was genuinely on his side: “The Pahrump town board chairman and the town manager were both quite upset about the situation. It is a pretty depressed locale economically, and they were trying to bring a little revenue into the community.”
Burning Man itself has come under quite a lot of recent scrutiny in Nevada as a cash cow by lawmakers and local governments looking for more teats to suckle in hard economic times. It’s not hard to imagine a beleaguered town board being hamstrung by a greedy County killing off the goose that might lay a few much-needed golden eggs.
John Pawlak, a burner who lives in Pahrump, had this to say about the reaction of his neighbors to the plan to bring Forgotten City to their rural hamlet:
“It seems ironic that certain individuals in this town can demonize and prejudge the folks at the Regional Burning Man group who were asked to come to our town at our request and then define them as homosexuals, nudists, drug addicts, hedonists and so forth. Are we blind when we in fact have all of those traits and more as a community, but we choose to hide those facts from the general public? Maybe we don’t have the nudism, but we have our brothels, swingers’ club, drug addicts, meth labs, plus we carry guns. We continue to slam shut the door on change here in town. If we are to make this a better place to live, we’re going to have to start someplace. We constantly complain of nothing to do here and when something or someone comes knocking at our door to begin the process, we shut it in their face.”
So, linking tickets to IDs was too hard, because that would restrict farmers gifting. However, if you want to buy tickets for Burning Man, you need to create a “Burner Profile“. Which means, if they don’t like you, they can shut you out forever. The World’s Biggest Guest List has now been taken to the ultimate extreme – no doubt a power trip for whoever fills the implied slot of The World’s Biggest Door Bitch.
“Q: What’s a Burner Profile?
A: The Burner Profile stores information about you and your activities as a member of the Burning Man community, so that it can be used to streamline processes that require us to collect information from you as you do things and create projects for Burning Man.”
…or – “as you gift things to our party at your own expense, we want to remind you that you’re in our service and creating for our benefit, and we want to keep our eyes on you as much as we can. We have a lot of bureaucracy that you will need to engage with”. We’ll see if this new data structure facilitates interactions with the BMOrg’s endless string of questionnaires, surveys, censuses (censi?), forms, licenses, tickets and other inventions of the centralized governing apparatus in any way. Or if it’s just another bunch of red tape getting between us and our party in the desert. ‘Scuse me for being skeptical, but no-one has ever tried this before as far as I know. The answer to 1984 is 1776, nothing good comes from secrecy…
Is this truly the solution to the Lottery horrors of 2012? In the face of declining population numbers, does implementing a more detailed profiling of the community, lead to growth and education of our community, and the easing of red tape and rules? Does this really need to happen behind “black box” computer systems that don’t have a great track record of performance, but get to decide if the Burners ends up being allowed in to buy a ticket or rejected by a computer error?
I am reminded of Machiavelli’s strategy of the Black Prince:
[spoiler alert!]
….where the king sends in a prince who is just terrible, all the people hate him, when the king kicks him out he’s seen as a hero and the new prince is welcomed as a savior, he gets to implement the original agenda of the king with the full support of the people. “Sure it’s bad, but it’s not as bad as what we had before, so we’re better off”.
“A: If you want to participate in one of our ticket sales, you must have a Burner Profile.”
“Over time, as we add more functionality to the system, you’ll be offered the opportunity to provide more information that will help facilitate your Burning Man activities that require you to provide us with information (project registration questionnaires and the like). The more you put into your profile, the more you’ll get out of the system, and the more we’ll know how to connect with you“
Corporate speak. What does that even mean? “In the future, you will get more out of this, we don’t know what but we promise it will be something, just give us as much data as possible now”. The data will not be available to the Burner community, only the BMOrg and whoever they decide is on their team.
Burning Man has had clashes with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Burner community before, over their overly onerous legal stances on intellectual property and other intangible goods they claim to own: that is, your information, photos, videos, observations, and more. In this case, any data you put on the Burner profile, although it is not searchable on the Internet, can be published anywhere on the Burning Man site at their absolute discretion. I see nothing to suggest that it wouldn’t then be searchable there. Here’s the clause:
“whenever you submit expressive content to the Image Gallery, Playa Artifacts, Tales from the Playa, or ePlaya, you understand that the submission will be made public on the web site, and that such submission may contain personal information. We are not responsible for the personal information that you or others choose to post in this manner. You may be identified as the author of any posted expressive content unless you tell us otherwise.”
You should be aware of their recently updated privacy policy. I want to highlight two particular clauses in it:
We use the personal information that we receive to operate the web site, produce the Burning Man event, and for Burning Man-related projects. Your personal information may be stored on our system and shared among Burning Man affiliates, including but not limited to the Burning Man Project, Black Rock City, LLC, and Black Rock Arts Foundation. We do not rent, sell, or share your personal information with any other entity, except when:
We have your permission; or
We respond to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process; or when we must exercise our legal rights, protect our property, defend against legal claims, or otherwise comply with the law; or
We believe it is appropriate in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected illegal activities, fraud, threats to personal safety, or violation of this web site’s terms of use.
the definition of who is an “affiliate” or “what is a related project” of Burning Man is unclear, and unlimited. And in agreeing to this privacy policy, anyone in the BMOrg, or “affiliated” with them – presumably including volunteers – can look up any of your information and history, at any time. That’s a heck of a lot of trust we’re putting into them; why can’t they give us the trust back, and make Burner profiles available on the Internet to the whole community. If people don’t want to be associated with Burning Man, let them use their Burner Names, don’t force them to use real names when you’re saying you can’t link tickets to IDs.
Not only that, if ANYONE affiliated with the BMOrg suspects you of doing anything that is either a) illegal or b) against their web site policies, they can sell your data to anyone they want. That’s what this clause says.
The other clause that concerns me is this:
“If Burning Man is acquired or transferred, or changes entity status, the personal information maintained on the Burning Man system will be among the transferred assets but will remain subject to any existing privacy policy.”
The definition of “who might take over Burning Man one day” is completely up in the air. “Changes entity status” is not exactly a crystal-clear legal expression, there is a lot of wiggle room in there. The government, the IRS, the ATF in a RICO investigation, Pershing County officials as part of a law suit settlement, Mexican cartels, Microsoft, religious freaks. It could be ANYONE. And “any” existing policies suggests that whoever ends up in control, if they have an existing privacy policy, your information will also be subject to that.
If you’ve already registered for their ticket sales when they announced it, you’re SOL because you can’t create a Burner Profile and it’s not easy to change:
Q: Can I change my Username in my profile? A: No. Your username is permanent. If you need to change your username, you will need to delete your account and create a new one with your desired username.
Q: Can I change my First Name, Last Name and/or Email Address in my profile? A: These are very difficult to change, but it can be done if necessary … and we have to do it for you. If you absolutely must change your first name, last name or email address, use theContact Us form to request the change. (Legitimate reasons for changing your name include: you misspelled your name when you created your account, you got married, or you legallychanged your name to DJ SparklePants.)
Q: If I’m pre-registered for a ticket sale, then I delete my account and create a new one, will that kill my pre-registration for that ticket sale? A: Yes. So if you’re currently pre-registered for a particular ticket sale, don’t do that. If you did it by accident, and you now realize you’re screwed, use the Contact Us form to let us know your plight as soon as possible.
At least whoever wrote this is honest to acknowledge that in implementing this policy change the way they have, they’re already led to many Burners being screwed. At the time of writing this post, it’s only 3 weeks old! This was announced on January 11[sorry for the delay on this story - I blame the beaches of Los Cabos: ed]. Was this part of the game theory they spent so much time and effort on?
A surprising number of Burners get injured each year and need medical attention. Humboldt Hospital (no stoners, not that one) in Winnemucca, NV is looking for temporary medical staff to help out at Burning Man 2013. What skills are needed? Well, you need to be able to decipher acronyms for starters:
Current openings include:
EMT
Advanced EMT
Paramedics
EMS-RN
EMS Supervisors and Managers
RN (ER and ICU experience required)
EMS/EM Physicians
Grounds Keepers
Receptionist’s
No idea what they need Grounds Keepers for, but would be fascinated to learn! You get a ticket as well as an hourly wage, for a minimum of 30 hours work over 3 shifts. Wonder if the hospital has to pay 3% of that to the BLM?
Humboldt General Hospital (Winnemucca ,NV) the Advanced Life Support Medical Services contractor for the iconic 55,000+ participant Burning Man festival is currently seeking medical professionals to fill temporary positions for the 2013 event.
Medical professionals will work under the medical direction of doctors Bryan Bledsoe DO and Jeff Westin MD. Medical professions will provide care to ill and injured event goers inside the onsite mobile medical unit, EMS professionals have the ability to also staff on of the event’s onsite ALS ambulances.
Successful candidates will work alongside a number of America’s top EMS professionals and leaders, resident physicians from the University Medical Center in Las Vegas NV, and top notch medical professionals working within Burning Man’s own Emergency Services.
All new employees must work a minimum of three 10 hour shifts. Employees who elect to work additional shifts will have access to lodging, meals, and other on playa amenities. Employees will be provided one event ticket in addition to an hourly wage.
The 2013 event will take place on the world famous Black Rock Desert in rural Northern Nevada from August 26th through September 2nd.
Job Requirements
Applicants should be experienced EMS providers with a desire to provide excellent patient care in a remote and austere environment. Applicants should be open minded, and able to adapt to interesting situations. Humboldt General Hospital will assist out of state providers gain all required state certification and licensure. All interested parties are strongly urged to apply. Current openings include:
EMT
