Time to Fight for your Rights folks.

To all,

I took the liberty to send this email to the chairman of this committee Don Nelson in hopes it will help sway his mind and vote. Feel free to copy it and send it to the other board members Edit if necessary, or write your own. You may be facing this same situation someday yourself.

Good Day Sir,

I am a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, and happened to read an article in your newspaper about a proposal to ban metal detecting in your city parks. I am an avid detectorist and I feel this motion to ban this all American hobby is a little too drastic. I completely understand the city's position on the city parks and agree with you concerns about keeping these parks as neat and clean as possible for all to enjoy. Yes it is true that just one careless person can make a big mess in the park as well as cause liabilities. But look at say a picnicker that drops a beer bottle cap on the ground and a little child picks it up and swallows it or drops it into the sand in the playground and another little child steps on it and cuts their foot. Would you ban all picnickers from the park? How about a runner that slips and falls on some food left on the ground by a picnicker. Again would you ban all picnicker and runners from the park to decrease your liabilities?   Probably not. A good way would be to educate park users on the do's and don'ts and how they can use the park. I don't want to see your parks trashed either by uncaring people. Our city with it's many parks has not banned metal detecting because of the great work done by our detectorist and prospecting clubs. We all have the same motto: "FILL ALL HOLES" which is engrained into all of the meetings, newsletters, outings and just general conversation. If we see trash we pick it up and put it in the waste refuse barrels. If we find items that could hurt someone such as, but not limited to, are broken bottles, beer bottle caps, drug paraphernalia and needles, razor blades, etc After all our kids and grandkids use the parks too. We don't want to see them hurt by something someone else carelessly discarded. We also will fill any holes we find that someone else left behind, and if we see anyone digging large holes, or has a pick or shovel, we remind them that such things are dangerous to the public and destroy the beauty of the park. We also report such people. We have found that items such as coins are usually buried less than a few inches below the ground therefore large holes are unnecessary, so we have developed tools and methods to make the smallest hole possible to retrieve them. We educate all members on those methods and tools as well. We try to find the owners of all signed jewelry and personal objects that we find. There are laws about theft by finding, and we obey them. Sorry this is so long winded but what you do in Mason City today could reverberate throughout the country tomorrow.
My suggestion is to work with the metal detecting community and not against them. The majority of them are just like you, they put their pants on one leg at a time, have children or grandchildren, pay taxes and vote.

Sincerely yours,
(your name here)

Dusty Carl


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A bad day at gold prospecting or metal detecting is better than a good day at work.