City Parks Dept Never Heard Of Geocaching

[+DreadPirateRoberts]

So, after getting some finds under my belt, I decided that I'd like to try to place my first cache. I scouted some locations, and came up with what I thought was a good one in an out-of-the-way place in a small city park. In order to follow the rules, I called up the parks department in my city to ask if they have a geocaching policy. But they had never heard of geocaching. Fortunately, the parks director was open to the idea. I've sent her the brochure and tried to really emphasize the CITO aspect. But I fear that she'll go to GC.com and see that there are dozens of geocaches already hidden in local parks and be upset.

 

Did I just ruin it for everyone by asking for permission?

[ju66l3r]

No.

 

You did the right thing and by fostering those good feelings about it, if they choose to develop any sort of policy, it will most likely be one of the better ones out there as opposed to one of the ones where they stumble on a cache (or someone reports a bomb scare) and all hell breaks loose and they officially close the parks to geocaching.

 

You *may* even be able to use any other caches in the parks that you're worried will now scare them as precedence for the benefits of keeping an open geocaching mindset ("Look at all the great things that have happened for this park now because of it! This is the results of CITO that I was talking about!").

[+Renegade Knight]

Geoaching going on for years and nobody noticed? It just goes to show that geocaching is a harmless activity and now it's one the parks can endorse.

[+The Leprechauns]

I agree with the above posts. And I'll add that in my city, we put on a CITO event to clean up a particularly messy park, and in exchange for that we have a blanket permission policy for placing caches in the park if the meet GC.com guidelines. That included the dozens of caches already in place, including six in the park we cleaned up. It probably helped that I had that conversation with the parks department people as they watched the truckloads of trash bags being hauled out of the park.

[magellan315]

There are any number of states and counties that have created very user friendly Geocaching policies if they feel they need to go that route and I'm sure we can post links if you need them.

 

Not only would I offer a CITO in exchange for Geocaching, I'd also offer to teach a free Geocaching class for the Parks Dept. to the local residents. I did this for a county park system and its been a great realtionship ever since.

[+Ladycacher]

Texas now requires you get a permit if placing a geocache in a state park. They get on GC.com and check the coords with the coords they have from the permits. If they find coords that do not have permits they go pick them up.

[+Yamahammer]

Texas now requires you get a permit if placing a geocache in a state park. They get on GC.com and check the coords with the coords they have from the permits. If they find coords that do not have permits they go pick them up.

You gotta ask ~ As the original OP did.

 

[tossedsalad]

I dunno. I was going to be the one to ask in my city and sent an email. I am not sure what I expected since there is a fairly active crowd around here that is very proactive about following procedures if parks have any. But I realized that if I made the first contact and blew it, my name would be tossedMUDDsalad. So I never followed up on my initial contact and went ahead and placed my cache.

 

Before I get the courage to go back and do the "right thing", I am going to get some of the more senior people around to back me up, or maybe do it instead of me.

 

That reminds me, there is a new park in the county and I want to look it up on their web site.

[+Criminal]

This is how it would have went if I had bothered to call:

 

ME: Hi, I was wondering if you had a policy on geocaches placed in city parks?

THEM: Geo what?

ME: Geocaches

THEM: What are geocaches?

ME: OKthankyougoodbye!

 

 

You did fine though.

[+Jeep_Dog]

Did I just ruin it for everyone by asking for permission?

No, you certainly did not.

 

Also, remember, just because the parks department does not know about geocaching, does not necessarily indicate permission was not obtained. For example, it is possible that the caches were placed prior to a separate, and formal, parks department. Perhaps the previous administration's director allowed geocaches, but did not pass the information to the next director. There are infinate possiblities!

 

One of my local communities, about a year ago, endorsed geocaching in the city parks at a council meeting. All council members endorsed geocaching and agreed to a "blanket" policy allowing non-destructive caches, seconded by the mayor. The following meeting, an formal "geocaching" information briefing was provided by a local cacher, and the information was provided for the police and fire departments.

 

Two months later, I placed the cache in a popular park, quite legal under the policy agreed to (verbally). Two months ago, I get a call from the parks groundskeepers, letting me know that they found the cache while working, and that they had it and I could retrieve it, but also told me I could not put it back since they did not think geocaching was an authorized activity. ACK! The quick story is that since the council meeting a year ago, a parks department was informally stood up, with none of the prior "policies" given to the new department. In this case, one of the council members cleared up the confusion with the groundskeepers.... yada yada yada. Then my cache was muggled, so it is now archived....

[+Criminal]

Two months ago, I get a call from the parks groundskeepers, letting me know that they found the cache while working, and that they had it and I could retrieve it, but also told me I could not put it back since they did not think geocaching was an authorized activity. ACK!

I can't believe you gave in to some groundskeepers. You've completely blown my whole image of you.

[magellan315]

Don't worry to much about permits, I have several county and one state agency that ask for permits. There is no fee, there is some CYA stuff for their lawyers, and they have a file with the cache information. Works very nicelly.

[+Jeep_Dog]

I can't believe you gave in to some groundskeepers. You've completely blown my whole image of you.

I did not. Read on... I sicked a councilwoman on them, and put the cache back. I gave into the muggle activity, for while it had a great camo job, the local kids who witnessed one or two cachers log their find, and decided destroying the cache was more fun than the playground.

 

Image? I don't need no stinking image. Blow my image at your discretion and as you wish. Although rumor has it but in a few weeks I'll be out caching in all my kilted glory again, perhaps a photo of that excursion will restore my "image."

 

TOPIC? There's a topic here? Well, back on it, then. There are some folks that believe in the "frisbee" rule. E.g., if you can play frisbee in a place, then it is common use, and thus open for geocaches. Hence, a "tacit" permission given for activities such as geocaching...

[+Criminal]

I can't believe you gave in to some groundskeepers.  You've completely blown my whole image of you.

I did not. Read on... I sicked a councilwoman on them, and put the cache back. I gave into the muggle activity, for while it had a great camo job, the local kids who witnessed one or two cachers log their find, and decided destroying the cache was more fun than the playground.

 

Image? I don't need no stinking image. Blow my image at your discretion and as you wish. Although rumor has it but in a few weeks I'll be out caching in all my kilted glory again, perhaps a photo of that excursion will restore my "image."

 

TOPIC? There's a topic here? Well, back on it, then. There are some folks that believe in the "frisbee" rule. E.g., if you can play frisbee in a place, then it is common use, and thus open for geocaches. Hence, a "tacit" permission given for activities such as geocaching...

OK, the abbreviated version made it appear you pulled it until you got the councilwoman on your side.

 

Kilt!? Awesome! We really need a pinned Kilting Thread here!

[+AuntieWeasel]

I suspect nearly everyone has done this mental math before placing a hide.

 

My first was in a suburban park. I had it all scoped out, and I wasn't going to ask for explicit permission. Then I did some homework and found it had just been handed over to a private land management group. That changed the equation for me.

 

It wasn't so much that I thought public land was public and I could do what I pleased. It was more that asking city employees for permission to do something sometimes puts you both in a tough spot. You're trying to nudge a big, scratchy bureaucracy then. The couple of times I've emailed questions about parks to city employees, I simply didn't hear back.

 

But a private land management concern, I had to ask. I was *so* not sure I had done the right thing, because they have thousands of acres across the state, with dozens of unauthorized caches in them. And it took six weeks to get clearance, during which time a letterboxer nicked my spot. Eh. I was in complete suspense.

 

In the year since, the agency has developed a formal (pro) geocaching policy. It wasn't because of me, but because I got permission, mine is grandfathered in.

 

But I can see the potential for that to have gone the other way, with everybody's unauthorized caches getting pulled because of me and an anti-caching policy going into effect with my big fat name on it. I would totally have felt like la jerk.

 

On a side note, I just replaced and re-enabled that cache today. It got soaked. This is what happens when you soak a log book and then put it in the oven:

 

 

It 'splodes!

[+robert]

Even though it's not required in all parks here, I ask permission. In the ones that do require it, it helped a lot the other day when I went to check on the cache and saw maintenance crews cleaning up the historic area around it. I walked right up while they were clearing brush, weeds, mowing, etc. and they looked at me kind of funny.

 

"Looking for something?"

"Yeah," and retrieved it from it's hiding spot.

 

I explained about geocaching and that the park ranger had okay'd my hides in the park. Had I not had permission I wouldn't have been comfortable to do that. I know not everyone asks first, and that's cool. But definitely do so in the areas it's required, and even in cases that it's not.

 

I have a new one in the queue that I asked though it's not necessary. That way if the park people see (or get told about) people going off trail they'll know what's up. Takes a little time in the beginning, but in the end it can save time should questions or concerns arise.

 

[+TeamAO]

So, after getting some finds under my belt, I decided that I'd like to try to place my first cache. I scouted some locations, and came up with what I thought was a good one in an out-of-the-way place in a small city park. In order to follow the rules, I called up the parks department in my city to ask if they have a geocaching policy. But they had never heard of geocaching. Fortunately, the parks director was open to the idea. I've sent her the brochure and tried to really emphasize the CITO aspect. But I fear that she'll go to GC.com and see that there are dozens of geocaches already hidden in local parks and be upset.

 

Did I just ruin it for everyone by asking for permission?

Thank you for being a responsible cache hider.

[+GSVNoFixedAbode]

NopDid I just ruin it for everyone by asking for permission?

Nope, I'd say well done as well Wesley! ...but we'll most likely kill you in the morning.

 

I have one in a local park, placed under the frisbee rule with the first muggle log being the groundskeeper; another I checked the placement with the city council and then the local Telecom rep: it was on a "paper" road near a cell/radio tower. No problems with that one either.

[+briansnat]

Did I just ruin it for everyone by asking for permission?

 

I'm going to go against the tide here and say maybe. There have been instances of geocaching going on in areas without notice. Then a well meaning geocacher comes along and asks permission and the sport winds up getting banned, or overly restrictive policies are put in place.

[+Bill & Tammy]

When I did my first hide in a city park I first attempted to get permission from the City Parks Director. It turns out that they didn't have a policy (this I got from his secretary) and after several calls and going down to his office to try and meet with him and also dropping an informational packet off to no avail I gave up on the process. To my understanding as long as I don't dig any holes or frighten grounds workers (this I also got from the secretary) he doesn't want to be bothered with individual approvals. Since there have been active caches around here since about 2002 with no problems I guess it is something they just want to deal with if something arises. I am starting to be of the same mindset as Criminal on this issue; just place the cache and pull it if there is a problem.

[magellan315]

I think Bill & Tammy have nailed it. You've asked, you've sent information, if they want follow up its their choice. Give it a week or two for them to be distracted by daily operations stuff and hide the cache. If it becomes a concern then you can work with them to deal with Goecaching.

[+Colorado Cacher]

Hm. You may have just stepped right in it.