California State Parks still in danger of closure! You can help now!

Unbelievable as it sounds, there is a very real danger Governor Schwarzenegger will soon close 220 of California's 279 State Parks, unless the legislature finds a way to replace $143 million in general fund monies. We have suggested to the Governor and legislature a logical and appropriate source of funding: The State's Off Highway Vehicle Trust Fund.

While social programs, law enforcement and fire protection programs are being slashed throughout the State, the OHV fund continues to be funded at full levels, primarily through transfers from Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax revenues. Most of the $60 million the OHV fund will receive this year is fuel taxes on street legal vehicles, but the OHV Division refuses to fund any project that doesn't benefit dirt bikes and ATVs.
The reason OHMVR funds projects for OHV is because that is what it is supposed to do
Not a single State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA) is slated for closure, because the OHV Division falsely claims their program is user funded. The truth: the program is not entitled to $49.8 million of the $60 million in fuel taxes it receives. This amount would go a long way to replacing lost State Parks general funds, and it may keep open the park you use!
Truth really is, you want to pull funding from OHV and use it on non-OHV. You have been trying this for years with little success because it is not right.
Please take a couple of minutes right now to call:

California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg: Phone: (916) 651-4006Please do call Rep Steinberg and Bass
California Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass: Phone: (916) 319-2047

or your state assemblyman (a look-up table can be found here)

and ask them to appropriate this funding from the OHV Trust Fund and put it toward State Park funding.

Talking points for your call:

The OHV Trust fund is NOT user-funded. All Californians who use vehicles off the pavement have a portion of their fuel sales taxes paid into the OHV fund.
HOLD the bus here, first you say we are not user funded then you say we pay in to the fund. Make up your mind :mad3:
Fees from "Green Sticker" (non-street legal vehicles) registration account for only 12% of the OHV Trust Fund.

The OHV Division uses these funds exclusively to support green-sticker activities. This is a violation of state law, which intended the department to support both motorized and nonmotorized recreation related to off-highway vehicle use."
I do not want to argue numbers, but the millions spent on the Forest Service Route Designation program secured roads for ACCESS for anyone to hike bike or otherwise.
More than four-fifths of off-highway vehicle use has nothing to do with green-sticker activities. Most off-highway vehicle use in California involves street-legal driving on dirt roads, either for pleasure or to get to a destination for non-motorized recreation.

Street-legal vehicle users engaging in non-green-sticker activities have paid $49.8 million in fuel taxes that benefit only dirt bikes and ATVs. That money should be reallocated to the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Fewer than 1 in 16 California households use non-street-legal vehicles. California's non-OHV parks and public lands are available for all Californians to use. Those parks should get the bulk of the tax dollars derived from recreational driving, not the facilities closed to all but the select few who own green-sticker vehicles.

Please take a moment to do this today. And, forward it into your network and encourage others to do the same.

Karen Schambach
California Field Director, PEER:

Karen you are deceitful and your statements prove it. I have no intention of ever buying in to your rhetoric.

Scott Johnston

Don Amadors reply to this as well

Thursday, July 9, 2009
COMMENTARY ON PEER'S EFFORT TO DEFUND CA OHV PROGRAM

On July 6, 2009 PEER (parent organization of Rangers for Responsible Recreation – one of its rangers is being interviewed by the US Senate today for National Director of BLM) issued an error filled news release advocating for the gutting of the CA OHV Program.

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PEER NEWS RELEASE
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1214



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As some of you know, BRC’s Don Amador spent over 100 hours in the summer of 2007 working with a core group from state parks, the OHV and green lobby, and the Governor’s Office on SB742 – a bill that would provide the state with an ecologically-balanced OHV program. At the end of the day, it got almost a unanimous vote of approval by the state legislature and was signed into law by the Governor. BTW – PEER opposed the bill.

Based on my recollection of some intense negotiations on SB742, and my review of the bill, here is my response to PEER’s bilge.

RESPONSE AND OVERVIEW

A bipartisan committee (GOP, Dems, Enviros, and OHVers) back in the early 1970s: created the 1971 Chappie-Z’berg Act. The bill provided a stable funding source of non-General Fund monies to help pay for trail maintenance, law enforcement, new riding areas, and safety/education. This concept is similar to other user pay/user benefit state programs such as Boating and Waterways where fuel taxes on gasoline burned by boaters is set aside for managing reservoirs and waterways. In a similar fashion, fuel taxes on gasoline burned while operating vehicles off-highway is set aside for managing off-highway vehicle recreation throughout California on local, state, federal and private lands.

According to the Revenue and Taxation Code, funds generated by off-highway recreation shall be used to for managing off-highway recreation, just as on-highway funds are used for highways.

Since the working group spent a lot of time discussing the following foundation block or tenet of SB742, let me restate it for the record… the bill says that the program is to support both motorized recreation and “motorized off-highway access to nonmotorized recreation.” SB742 states that priority should be given to grant projects that maintain existing OHV opportunity, and then give extra consideration to those projects which also provide motorized access to nonmotorized recreation.

BTW –I seem to remember that OHMVR staff said at a OHV meeting that that approx. 20-21 percent of the OHV fund comes from the new increased OHV reg. fees – not 12%

Here's the numbers, you decide:

$60 million in fuel tax
$17 million from OHV registrations
$5 million from SVRA entrance fees

That works out to 27.5%.

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/Governors ... 0/3790.pdf

Ride on
Brewster

The reason OHMVR funds projects for OHV is because that is what it is supposed to do

Karen you are deceitful and your statements prove it. I have no intention of ever buying in to your rhetoric.

Scott Johnston

She may be losing it....her logic and lack of comprehension proves it.

Here's the breakdown:
In 2009, $27.1 million will be available for distribution among four funding categories:

Education and Safety:$ 1,300,000

Law Enforcement:$ 5,200,000

Operations & Maintenance:$13,000,000

Restoration: $ 7,600,000

http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=1164

So if they were to take the money she thinks should go to state parks, how would that effect the grants that OHMVR have finalized? or would it have no effect this year.

Dear PEER;
Be Careful What You Ask For.
Consider This…

The non-OHV related interests need to keep their greedy little fingers away from the self funded OHMVR program or I think off-roaders will be more than happy to re-register none of their off-road vehicles with this state. Fees and taxes are too damned high here anyway.

That sentiment is shared by me, my children, my grandchildren, my friends and neighbors, the members of our clubs and likely anyone else who is aware of this intended “rip off”.

The OHMVR program and the grants that are so generously shared with the public are supported entirely by hard working off-roaders. If control is lost, we would be hard pressed to find a reason to register any dune buggy, rail or other contraption we build. Our off-road vehicle purchases and sales could easily be made in a State that recognizes and appreciates the off-roader’s ability and desire to help police the sport.

We would then thumb our noses at California’s inability to fund enforcement efforts and the remaining authorities would be challenged to the game of “catch me if you can!”

California policy makers, all, should re-think this matter. And, any group or individual concerned about regulating the use of OHVs or enforcing such regulation better let the Governor know that he is about to make a big mistake!

I would think even the hateful ANTI-OHV folks that are so good at squeaking their wheels, would want to make this campaign their own.

You are all missing the point of how to argue this specific issue.

Basically, the OHV Trust Fund has legislated protections built in. The legislature gave and the legislature can take.

So, set aside the emotional attachment to the funding and look at the program from a broader scale.

Consider, there are many small businesses that function within the state that owe their existence to the state OHV program.

Those businesses employ a certain number of people and pay a certain amount of tax revenue to the state. In addition, they also pay rent for shop/store space.

Now, should those businesses begin to fail, the immediate impact is loss of rent income to a local property owner. That is compounded by laying off employees who will become eligible for unemployment. That is compounded by the loss of local sales tax revenue and state tax revenue.

So, one small business folds and a domino effect starts. Especially when it is pushed along by the demise of a self-sustaining program.

Now, set aside the emotional rhetoric and begin to think in terms of economics and large scale impacts from seemingly small actions.

There are a few legislators that recognize the economics involved. Don't launch without having a comprehensive argument laid out.

It is all about $$$$$$$$.....

Loud and clear John. My letters to the legislature are filled with fact as I have them. MY intent as much as anything else is to expose the type of campaign Karen can cook up.

My hat is off to her, she is good. We need to be better. Hitting the emotional side and playing the wounded bird bit is what she excels at the best. The martyr mask fits her well, and she plays it time and time again.

Not something I would personally be proud of, but it has been effective in the past.

I will call it out as much as I can see it so others know that it is a ploy to incite the emotion to distract us from the real path.

So if they were to take the money she thinks should go to state parks, how would that effect the grants that OHMVR have finalized? or would it have no effect this year.
There's no effect for July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. The grants are allocated, approved, and funded... but from July 1, 2010, this is a big deal.

Don Amador nailed it when he called that Public Employess for Environmental Reprehensibility press release 'bilge.'

I'm calling legislative staff and ta lking about what happens if the OHV program is gutted: fiscal impact from jobs lost, environmental education grinding to a halt, and good pay-as-you-go projects swamped by a back-water of poorly run state parks... It just makes no sense to reward parks that never pay for themselves by gutting programs that *DO* pay for themselves.

Randii

there are many small businesses that function within the state that owe their existence to the state OHV program.

This is the KEY point I have been driving home through all of this. Plain and simple, the way OUT of an economic downturn is not to hinder the businesses that are still keeping the lights on.

Far too many people only see the short-term bandage and forget to recognize that once removed, there will be a gaping hole that has festered underneath. Tourism, jobs, taxes, development...all are threatened by actions like this and when one business fails, there is a domino effect that causes other businesses to fail.

John is right, in that we need to use the economic impacts with closing OHV parks.
I have seen numbers from the forest service, and have plugged them into a database to look at the corresponding forests.
People spend 7.2 billon (yes billion) dollars around and visiting forests in the local communities. People spend almost a billion dollars around the National Forests in California. How much would the Federal Government have to send her in stimulus to make up for this loss...
I am sure it is proportionate around the state OHV parks.
I have need seen any economic data from state parks though.
I could use dollar numbers from the forest service, but these for state OHV areas would have a bigger confidence level from not having actual visitor and economic data to correlate it too.

If I had the time, I would write a grant to start getting this data for future use.
But it takes about a year of visiting the different areas, asking the questions and then putting the data into excel and a database. Not hard, just takes time.
I retire next year, and if someone wants to pay me to do this, I will for a small fee...

The Hi-Desert Star is Yucca Valley’s bi-weekly news paper. The following misinformation appeared in the readers write section of Saturday’s edition.

LETTER: OHV lands use too much park money

Published: Friday, July 10, 2009 6:43 PM CDT
D.S. Wenzel
Twentynine Palms

“Very soon three-quarters of California’s state parks will close, unless the legislature replaces $143 million in general fund monies. While law enforcement and fire protection programs are being slashed, off-highway vehicle (OHV) programs continue on fully funded. Not one State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA) is slated for closure.

It is a problem that OHV programs are taxpayer funded instead of user funded, but only 12 percent ($10.2 million) of OHV Trust Fund monies come from OHV users. This year the OHV trust fund will receive $49.8 million from fuel taxes paid by Californians who use vehicles on the pavement but do not use OHVs.

Those millions will not go to keep up dirt roads in state parks that are open to all Californians, as they should, they will go to maintain dirt tracks in SVRAs.
Fewer than 1 in 15 California households use OHVs and only a portion of those use SVRAs — these elite few are deriving huge benefits ($49,800,000) at the expense of the rest of Californians.

California’s non-OHV parks and public lands are open to everyone. Those parks should get the bulk of the tax dollars derived from recreational driving, not the facilities closed to all but the OHV-owning elite.

Fifty-million dollars would go a long way toward replacing lost state parks general funds, and it may keep the park you use open!

No one is asking that OHV activity stop, just that OHV owners do the reasonable thing and bear their fair share of the burden.

…Call California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg at (916) 651-4006 and Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass at (916) 319-2047 and tell them to tap the OHV Trust Fund to support state parks for all Californians.”

So OK...

Note; Phil Klasky and his COWers are undoubtedly behind this as they have been publishing their anti-off road lies in our local papers for the last four years.

Opportunity knocks but we could use a little help with this one.


Would the good folks with the real facts and figures send in some rebuttals (via link) so the readers can know the truth?

http://www.hidesertstar.com/forms/letters/


If there are enough replies, the paper may feel obliged to address the issue themselves. It would be great if this were to happen across the State.

Thanks
Mike Hawkins

Thanks for the help. “OFF ROADERS ROCK”.

Today the Hi- Desert Star published some of the many replies you all sent in regarding Wetzel’s disingenuous article.

There were a lot more replies, hopefully they will appear in subsequent editions The paper comes out on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

If the link works, you should be able to see what editorials they printed for us.

http://www.hidesertstar.com/editorial/

Thanks again
Mike

PS. If the Star asks anyone for an interview, don’t keep it a secrete hey!

Wenzel's article appears in the San Bernardino County Sun too.

http://www.sbsun.com/letters/ci_12846867