OHV sticker funds at risk

[psychoneurosis]

I got an email from my jeep club about this. I think this also impacts sleds, but even if it does not I am sure I am not the only one who does more than sled. I shamelessly stole the body of the post off colorado4x4 just to save time.

Just got this from the Chairman of COHVCO, in short State parks wants to raid 2.3 Million dollars from OUR OHV funds to pay for state parks portion of the general fund.

This is money ONLY OHV pays for, we cannot ride in the parks, we reap no direct benefit from them (from an OHV standpoint). So we end up paying. Not the hikers, bikers, equestrians....we do.

Colorado State Parks has proposed to the Joint Budget Committee that they will sacrifice about 2.3 million dollars of OHV registration funds to help satisfy the the Parks portion of the General Fund shortfall. The decision will be made tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon when the JBC meets. We have until about 1:00 P.M. to get the attention of the JBC.

I have attached a document containing the names and individual phone numbers of the members of the JBC. Any phone messages will go to their voice mail, so it is OK to call tonight, or anytime up until about 1:00 Tuesday afternoon. Call every member of the committee.

There will be not time for testimony, and the message needs to be short and pointed. Jerry says to call and leave the message that "Parks should not steal our registration money, and that they should look somewhere else to find the money to fund their state parks operations, for which we receive no benefit.

We need to get the word out as far and as fast as possible.


You should call and leave a message to each member of the Joint Budget Committee. Tell them you DO NOT want them to raid the OHV funds to pay for the State Parks budget shortfall! (Unless they want to give us 2.3 million dollars of OHV trails in the state parks!)

Senator Moe Keller
District 20- Jefferson County
303-866-2585

Senator Abel Tapia
District 31- Pueblo County
303-866-2581

Senator Al White
District 8- Eagle, Garfield, Jackson, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt Counties
303-866-2586

Representative Jack Pommer
District 11- Boulder County
303-866-2780

Representative Mark Ferrandino
District 2- Denver County
303-866-2911

Representative Don Marostica
District 51 - Larimer County
303-866-2947

 

[bushy]

Please call the rep in your district at the very least. They are stealing our OHV registration money and giving it to greenies is what it boils down to! Just tell them our OHV sticker funds shouldn't go fund an agency that provides nothing for us.

 

[moquisgirl]

Well, I made my calls in support! However, I was only able to leave a message on 3 out of 6 voicemails. The other 3 were full!!

 

[psychoneurosis]

Shameless pulled from Colorado4x4 again but more time and it appears that we may have caught someones ear!

UPDATE:
The JBC did not get to vote on the OHV registration fee usage. They have until tomorrow before 1 PM to vote on it.

Jerry Abboud, COHVCO's Exec Director, has been down at the state capital all day lobbying for the OHV community. He said that we have the enviro's to thank for this mess as they hired a lobbiest to lobby state parks and the Department of Natural Resources to use the OHV registration funds to make up the shortfall specifically because they know if there is no OHV registration money, no OHV projects for trail maintenance and no new trails, plus no Stay The Trail program.

With that said, keep up the good work and continue to email and call the representatives. LUCKILY there are a couple of people on the JBC that knew what the OHV registration money went towards and that is the only reason the JBC did not vote on it yesterday and postponed it to today.

Our efforts were felt in full force! Keep emailing and calling to let the JBC members know that we want our money to use on our trails the way it was set up to be allocated, not go into the general funds.

 

[Rprecision]

Please call the rep in your district at the very least. They are stealing our OHV registration money and giving it to greenies is what it boils down to! Just tell them our OHV sticker funds shouldn't go fund an agency that provides nothing for us.

Hell they have been doing that for awhile................

Given the states budget crisis it seems this method of stealing from peter to pay paul is productive.........

the fact of the matter is while we may win a battle here and there we have long lost the war !

 

[skibreeze]

I just left 6 messages, c'mon guys make the calls!

 

[AndrettiDog]

A letter from the COHVCO chair...

Please take a quick moment to send a letter to the email address in this letter. I tried to attach but it was too big, so I have it listed below Glen's email.

I spent most of the day at the Capitol today talking to a few members of the JBC, at the end of the day, they had not brought up the proposal to move funds from the OHV Registration Fund to the General Fund. If they do not bring it up by noon tomorrow, it will die, with one caveat. The proponent - the Department of Natural Resources can find a sponsor in the Senate and get late bill status, the proposal could still be alive. Jerry tells me that late bill status for a proposal like this is unlikely, and the we - COHVCO have enough supporters in the Senate that we could probably get the bill killed. I am cautiously optimistic.

A little more insight on what happened - apparently neither Parks or DNR created this proposal. It looks like a coalition (gang) of environmental groups came up with the idea to sacrifice the OHV funds, and hired a lobbyist to present the idea to DNR, who in turn brought it to the JBC at almost the last possible moment. We were about 18 hours away from seeing the worst possible outcome.

We will try to confirm that the enviros did, indeed, orchestrate this theft.

Right now we need to swing one JBC member who may be on the fence on this issue. Senator Abel Tapia representing Pueblo County needs to hear from us, especially those of you that live in Pueblo County and call yourselves a constituent. Senator Tapia's email address is abel.tapia.senate@state.co.us.

I have attached a document whose contents were suggested by Jerry. We need to get 50 or more emails to Senator Tapia by 9:30 or 10:00 tomorrow morning. If you are not a constituent, then you may want to change the wording a little, and please add your name and a phone number.

Our call in blast last night was a great success. Most JBC member's voice mail boxes were full by about 10:30 or 11:00 last night, and it sounded like all members had close to 200 messages by about noon today - great work everybody.

As soon as I hear what happens tomorrow, I will pass the word on.

Glen
__________________________________________

Dear Senator Tapia,

I am a constituent of yours, and a motorized recreation enthusiast. I understand that you support the request of the motorized community to reject the proposal by the Department of Natural Resources to move 2.3 million dollars, or about 80 %, of the dollars in the OHV Registration Fund to the General Fund. This transfer, if approved, would effectively kill a program that has benefited motorized recreation for 18 years.

Thank you very much for supporting successful Colorado State Parks program.

 

[skibreeze]

Email sent!

 

[dhrm]

I'm pretty sure that Senator Abel Tapia is the same joker that moved up the vote to this morning @ 0730 to give Illegal immigrants instate tuition. This was done because the tie vote (that would have KILLED the bill) Republican committee member Ted Harvey, an opponent of the bill, was absent from Wednesday's vote because of a family emergency. The vote was suppose to take place on Friday after Harvey returned but the DEMs (Chris Romer) realized they could pass the bill through the Appropriations Committee with Harvey out of the picture. This is the DEMs a their best. I'm not one for 9news but here is the link to this issue.

http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=112915&catid=346

 

[AndrettiDog]

Good News!

I just got an email from the CSA President. This is great news. Apparently Senator Tapia was convinced to see this debacle our way. I'm sure all the emails we sent made a difference. Now if we can just get more people proactive in other land management issues.


We won this one. The JBC finished their business about 5:00 P.M., and did not consider the DNR proposal to move money from the OHV Registration Fund to the General Fund. We must now wait to see if DNR (or their rats) seek late bill status. This could theoretically happen anytime up until the last day of the session, but Jerry says this would ordinarilly be difficult, and with us watching, probably next to impossible.

When Jerry and I have time, we will describe in a little more detail what happened, and why, and why we need everyone to get and stay involved.

It appears that in the end, Senator Tapia was convinced that our position was the correct position, so thanks to all of you that sent emails to Senator Tapia last night.

Please circulate this to those that have helped by calling and emailing the JBC - good job every one - but we are not done yet. We do have a little breathing room, and a lot more eyes watching.

Glenn

 

[skibreeze]

Glad to see that we won this battle, It doesn't take long to leave messages and emails. Remember the greenies have all the time in the world, so it's important to do our part to stop them.