Washington State Parks Meeting (grooming)

[Tampico]

Just a quick reminder that the Washington State Parks will be having their summer advisory meeting this upcoming weekend, July 30-31 at the Howard Johnson in Yakima. The first meeting starts Friday Night @ 5:00 and continues Saturday morning through the afternoon. I will post more detail before Wednesday.

As this meeting is in Yakima, this would be a good time to show support for the Ahtanum Situation. The Yakima Ski-Benders will be deciding fairly quickly (a lot depends on this meeting) about which direction the club will take. At this time, and with fairly old information, it appears local riders will have to fund raise again to keep this area open for at least one more year. Hopefully, a legislative solution will be in place by the 2011-2012 winter season. I feel we will need a broader base of support than what we had last year to continue these actions. We do have an earlier start, however.

I will post more information as it becomes available.

If you have any questions or additional information, please email me at devin@greenacrefarms.com

PS; The extended range forecasts indicate a "La Nina" for this winter, COOL and WET!!

Thank you,
Tampico

 

[ruffryder]

care to explain the ahtanum situation?

 

[Tampico]

Ahtanum DNR funding dilemma (nicely)

Last year, the Yakima Ski-Benders and local riders had to raise around $23,500 to pay for over sight of the 4 SE Washington DNR area sno-parks. This is not covered by grooming or plowing funds that come from your tabs or gas tax %. Basically, they would not have allowed these areas to be plowed or groomed until we put up the $. In the case of the Ahtanum, this is probably the 2nd largest sno-park area in the state, with oodles of great area.

The funding shortfall was due to our states inability to budget,and DNR getting cut back.

The Ski-Benders, local snowmobilers, and local business's put up the money to get it done; but it was a struggle. Donations are never an equal sum game, either.

I believe (at this time), the situation will be the same for this upcoming season.

There were a huge amount of posts (a lot by myself) concerning this issue last fall. I will recycle and update those probably by the end of August. We kind of got caught late last year, and we had a small time window in which to act.

I will post more on the upcoming season when I learn more.

Tampico

 

[94fordguy]

Thanks for keep us apprised of the situation, it sucks that we may have to go through this BS again, but the earlier the start the better....

 

[Tampico]

Meeting Times

The grooming programs contractor meetings start at 2:00 Friday (7/30/10). I don't know what this meeting entails, I will try to attend.

The main State Parks Snowmobile advisory meeting starts at 7:00 till 10:00 Friday evening. The meeting resume at 8:00am Saturday morning till 5:00pm.

All the meetings are held at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel at 9 North 9th street in Yakima.

Any questions, email me at devin@greenacrefarms.com

Thanks,

Tampico