Status Of OHV After California Budget Battle

As a native of California, I must say the recently resolved budget battle in Sacramento was ugly at best. It is difficult for many Californians (including The General) to watch the tarnish build on our Golden State.

According to my sources in Sacramento, the marathon 45-hour legislative session was the longest in California history. Most of the 41-billion dollar budget concerns have been confronted. However there are 600 million in cuts still to be done by the governor. The new budget borrows about eleven and half billion, cuts about fifteen billion and raises almost thirteen billion in new taxes.

I think our publicly funded healthcare programs, road and transportation projects,
the education system, and other state departments will take some big hits.

As some of you know there was almost one hundred million dollars in the OHV Trust fund. Thanks to the letters sent by many of you, I understand the legislature left ten million in that pot for shovel-ready projects and land purchases

While some riders may want to complain about the money being taken (and rightfully so), I can safely assume that OHMVR Deputy Director, Daphne Greene, and staff worked hard to advocate for monies to be left in the OHV Trust Fund account. And, it is because of that work (and your letters) that ten million dollars was not taken.

Yes, ninety million was taken to offset the deficit. The government does not have to pay it back for two years. Some OHV groups had suggested they take sixty and leave thirty - forty million for acquisitions. That scenario did not play out.

The OHV Trust Fund money is ours only if we spend it. Until then, the statute is very clear that the governor can take it as essentially a no-interest loan for two years.

The law was changed with statutory protections after the Wilson Administration stole OHV money back in the 1990s.

Some of you may ask… “Why did the OHV Trust Fund grow to such a large amount?” The answer is that the OHMVR Division has not been able to site a new riding area for many years. As an OHMVR Commissioner from 1994-2000, I remember traveling up and down the state from Humboldt County to San Diego County looking at potential new OHV park sites. However, once the anti-OHV crowd found out about the new plan… those groups and the NIMBY’s came out in full force to kill the projects.

However, life must go on and after the smoke has cleared I think the OHV community has the opportunity to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

I think the passage of SB 742 has given OHMVR better tools to run an effective program with substantive grants for trails, restoration, and law enforcement. We should be supporting those efforts.

I believe that Daphne is working hard to identify property that will hopefully be purchased in the not too distant future. That is a goal too that deserves our support.

In the meantime it appears funds will be available to run the OHMVR program including grants to the Forest Service, BLM, and local jurisdictions. And, we have ten million dollars left in the OHV Trust Fund for the purchase of new riding
areas.

In 2009, is this something we should be proud of or happy about? Not really, but all things considered (such as major corporations going bankrupt) we should try and make lemonade out of lemons and take pride in the fact that some money is left and the OHMVR program remains.

PS - It looks like the CCC's survived as well.

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Save the California Conservation Corps - A Trail Partner

As a trail professional, I wanted to share my thoughts with you regarding the
proposal in the Governor’s Budget to eliminate the California Conservation Corps. (CCC or the Cs).

Even though some of my readers may not consider the Cs an important part of the OHV community, I have seen first hand the work the Cs have done on Forest Service (photo for today is me on a FS OHV trail maintained by the Cs) and BLM trails. I consider them a valued friend and force multiplier when partnered with congressional appropriated dollars, OHV grants, and other funding tools.

On behalf of the BlueRibbon Coalition, I attended the rollout of Region 5/ Forest Service's “Trees and Trails” program in Dec. 2008. The agency's vision is to better protect and improve the health of our forests and to maintain their trails for the citizens of this state. I believe the Cs are an important key partner in accomplishing that goal.

Also, President Obama has said he supports “green jobs" and the Cs fit that bill. While folks debate the merits of his proposed funding of green jobs that don’t exist yet, I believe the Cs are just the type of current, practical, and cost-effective green jobs that Obama should be supporting.

I have already asked you to send in letters to the Governor asking him to not raid the OHV Trust Fund. Now, I would ask those of you who believe the Cs are an important trail partner to go to the Save-the-Cs website and send a letter supporting them.

Go to:
http://www.save-the-ccc.org/ and click on the “Take Action” Icon at the top of the page.

Thanks for your review of this recreation and forest health issue.

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Proposed Raid on OHV Trust Fund in CA

Many already know of the proposed raid by the Governor’s Office and state legislature of almost 90 million dollars from the OHV Trust Fund to help solve the budget crisis in California. This is a very disturbing prospect for me on any number of levels and it shows just how bad the economic situation is in what used to be called the Golden State.

One of my first state-oriented land-use battles in the early 1990s was fighting the Wilson Administration’s raid on the OHV program. Early in that fight, I had received a heads-up from a federal land management employee that they were being told by Region 5 to expect massive cuts in the OHV grants program. Many groups and activists held letter writing and fax campaigns, started a massive state-wide phone-in to the Capitol, and had pro-access US Senators send letters of protest to the Governor’s Office and Resource Agency.

While some may argue the success of those efforts, the fact remains that the OHV Division and grants program continued. Sadly, the monies collected for the acquisition of new riding areas from that time has largely sat in a stagnate account being unspent.

As an OHMVR Commissioner in the mid 1990s, I remember looking at potential sites ranging from Humboldt County, down in the Central Valley, and in So Cal.
Regardless of how rural those sites were, there was ALWAYS some local NIMBY or green citizen’s group that loudly protested to elected officials and the media.

When I asked one of those groups why they were protesting a new OHV site, they would say… “I support OHV but not at this site.” Then I would ask them to ID a site. Their response was always stone cold silence.

Even when properties were acquired between 15-20 years ago -- such as the new properties surrounding the Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area near Tracy -- they were protested by anti-access interests. Also with Carnegie, the required CEQA planning was mismanaged to a point where the state is on its third EIR. The good news at Carnegie is that the OHMVR Division has hired a qualified planning group and the state is dedicated to get some wheels-on-the-ground in the next 3 years. The Carnegie OHV Taskforce has been reenergized as well.

More good news is that it appears funding for the OHMVR Division and the grants program to other agencies will remain in 2009 and beyond. So I would encourage riders to let their land-managers know to apply for trail grants this year.

So the question remains what should the OHV community do about the potential raid on the unspent 90 million dollars? Certainly local voters/riders should loudly object to their elected officials about the raid and demand accountability under the Dome.


And send in letters using the AMA Alert
http://capwiz.com/amacycle/issues/alert/?alertid=12482691&queueid=2812100896

Or the CORVA Alert
http://www.corva.org/


Elected officials should know that OHVers increased the green sticker fees upon themselves in SB742 as a good faith effort to help maintain off-road opportunities and protect the environment on state, county, and federal lands. A raid on the fund destroys that trust in my opinion.

With that being said and if we have to fish or cut bait, I would suggest that OHV interests consider offering to help the state during this genuine fiscal crisis by supporting a loan (to be paid back in two years). Also, we should ask for an expedited planning or permitting process so OHMVR can purchase new riding opportunities and get them open for use “shovel-ready” in a much shorter time period than the historic 15-20 years.

In the end and in my experience, this legislature often will do what it wants regardless of how loud our collective protest is. However, I think the ultimate solution to this crisis will arise from a blend of justified righteous indignation and forward thinking pro-access tenets on any loan from the OHV program to the state.

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