Quoted from appended article published today about an new effort to authorize user-fees for OHV use in Arizona:

[The Sierra Club was officially neutral on the 2006 bill, but lobbyist Sandy Bahr said the environmental group now opposes the 2007 version... While welcoming signs for current trails and enforcement of access restrictions to protect environmentally sensitive areas, Bahr said the bill is troubling because significant funding for new trails could open additional areas to riders. "It's pretty open-ended."]

When recreation user fees were foisted upon public lands by the American Recreation Coalition in 1996, the press dubbed the paradigm these fees created as "Pay-to-Play."  It now turns out that the press was wrong and that moniker is misleading.

The American Recreation Coalition and the motorized recreation interests it represents, created what they understood would become "Pay AND Play". The concept was simple -- You PAY, You PLAY. Outdoor recreation would be transformed into an item of commerce and the great outdoors would be packaged, marketed and sold to paying customers in the form of value-added products, goods and services. Delivery would be primarily through public-private partnerships and / or through cooperative agreements with access-oriented recreation organizations. And, most important of all, those who paid more, would get more.

I'll just add, there are reasons WHY you will find more than 500 hits when GOOGLING for "American Recreation Coalition" combined with "Arizona". Those reason make today's news article an issue of National importance. I would encourage folks to look upon it as such.

Scott 

--- begin quoted ---

Nov. 24, 2006
Arizona revives off-road proposal
Plan would require vehicle permits

PHOENIX (AP) - Like a dirt-biker rider who doesn't make the top of a hill the first time, there's another push to ask the Arizona Legislature to require owners of off-highway vehicles to pay for a new annual sticker.

The payoff, the state Department of Game and Fish and other supporters say, would be additional funding for improved access to off-road areas, bolstered education efforts and enhanced law enforcement.

Under a still-developing proposal being prepared for the Legislature's 2007 session, a "Copper Sticker" would be mandated for off-highway vehicles such as four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, sand rails and dirt bike motorcycles that use public lands or rights-of-way.

A similar proposal failed during the 2006 legislative session. That bill made its way through several committees but, even after being substantially revised, died in the full Senate on a 13-17 vote.

The 2006 bill was criticized by some lawmakers as an infringement on individual rights, and the Sierra Club said it didn't include adequate protections for the environment.

Arizona now raises $2.7 million annually for off-highway programs from a tiny share of gasoline tax revenue, with the money divvied up between the Game and Fish Department and the state parks system.

However, the Game and Fish Department says the current funding isn't enough to handle needs for trail development, law enforcement and other needs resulting from the dramatic increase in all-terrain vehicle use in Arizona.

The number of registered or titled all-terrain vehicles in Arizona went from 51,000 in December 1998 to more than 230,000 in July 2006, the department said.

Back in the early 1990s, "it was a few guys running around in Jeeps and at that time we didn't even have quads," said Mike Senn, Game and Fish assistant director for field operations. "That sport has astronomically increased."

It didn't help that the state tapped the off-highway vehicle fund of millions of dollars to help balance the budget during the recession earlier this decade.

The draft 2007 legislation would allow the Game and Fish director to set the Copper Sticker's price, but Senn said $20 per vehicle per year is what's envisioned. At that level, the program would raise an estimated $4.6 million annually.

Similar to programs in use in states such as Utah and California, Arizona's program would provide dollars for development of trails and other access routes, grants for local enforcement of off-highway vehicle laws, mitigation of damage caused by OHVs and creation of maps, signs and educational material.

Game and Fish held 10 public meetings around Arizona to solicit comments on the proposal this fall.

In general, people from urban areas were more receptive to the fee proposal because many had experienced access closures, but rural residents hadn't had the same problems and were less receptive to the idea, Senn said.

Jeff Gursh, a member of a dirt bike group and land access director for the Arizona Off Highway Vehicle Coalition, expressed a similar view of a split between urban and rural users.

Because of the need for more trails and lack of signage and trailhead facilities such as restrooms and parking at existing ones, many urban-area users would accept paying a fee, said Gursh, of Phoenix.

"It's not a tax. It's a user pay to play. We're willing to do that," Gursh said. "The trails are in bad shape. They need to be repaired. They need to be closed in places. They need to be managed."

But while many users have been pressing for a sticker program for years, there's a growing view among activists that the proposed legislation should be set aside until 2008 so points of contention can be ironed out in the meantime, he said.

However, "they're going to run the bill whether the user groups support it or not," he said of Game and Fish. "It's no longer a users bill."

Gursh said the bill doesn't provide certainty that the makeup of a state advisory group awarding funding grants would place enough emphasis on trail development and related work as well as educational material.

Gursh said users also want more say in how the bill's provisions are drafted and whether it moves forward in the Legislature if it undergoes big changes.

The Sierra Club was officially neutral on the 2006 bill, but lobbyist Sandy Bahr said the environmental group now opposes the 2007 version.

Bahr said the advisory group's membership would be "just totally stacked" in favor of users who could lack expertise in conservation and watershed protection areas, she said.

While welcoming signs for current trails and enforcement of access restrictions to protect environmentally sensitive areas, Bahr said the bill is troubling because significant funding for new trails could open additional areas to riders. "It's pretty open-ended."

Gursh said the bill wouldn't affect environmental and archaeological restrictions on designation of trails.

"There's nothing in this bill that says all the illegal trails out there now will be approved," he said.

Senn said a working group will meet next week to review the approximately 800 comments received and consider possible changes to the proposal.

"This is just a draft," he said. "I suspect there will be some changes."

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