Evicted Camper

[Camper]

Our family has been camping at Swartz Campground for the last 16 yrs for a very large family reunion. We usually have at least 60+ people show (Sometimes more) and stay from Friday thru Monday spending quite a bit of money in Cottage Grove while we are there. This year they have new rules that say only 25 cars per group site. Well we had 27 and got evicted. Most of our relatives are elderly and disabled. Quite a few of us come from California, LA, Arizona, and the coast (where it is cool) and these hosts expected us to leave our cars parked along the county road and walk in like a 1/2 mile in 100 degree heat with our canes and walkers. We were given about an hour to pack up camp and leave...in the heat of the day, right before our big event was to start. Very anti-climatic for us. All over parking. I can understand if we were drunk and rowdy and causing problems, but we had a couple of un-permitted cars. On top of that, we had moved 11 cars out to the hwy so there would be room for our old people to park. The host still would not let them in even though we had made these arrangements with the blessings of one the EIGHT park rangers.
So we will not be returning to Cottage Groves with our money. Nor will we be referring our friends to Cottage Grove. In fact we will be telling everyone we can about our bad experience. IN this day and age of the bad economy, I'm thinking that this campground should just simply be charging for extra cars to park. We would have gladly paid to park. Dummys.

[Larry]

As a Cottage Grove resident, I am sorry for your experience, but I have also been effected by the unfriendly and intolerant actions the Schwartz park "hosts". We no longer use the park for our events either. This is a great town with a lot of good people, the " hosts" are not even residents!

[Paul]

I sympathize 100%. I try to follow the rules, but I am frustrated when the local MFWIC seems to make them up on the spot. My worst experiences have been with the Forest Service, but in any case, what can you do? I politely ask them to show me their regulations, but even when they can't (and they seldom can substantiate their own rules) I just leave. I don't want to be anywhere where I don't feel welcome.

There was a time when these were public lands, OUR lands. Now they are Government lands, and they control their land,... they control us.

[Paul]

BTW, I am a resident of Cottage Grove, now living in South America, where it's warm and sunny on Christmas Eve. I am saddened by the changes I've seen in Oregon and the US. But it is still a great country. I wish I could say the same for our bureaucrats.