Wasn't there a thread about this 3 weeks ago?
There was.. Butch and I tried to get in to meet with Senator Joe S.. and got stonewalled.. sucks as he reps me (District).
Here is the press release on the issue:
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolaler...s-announce-plan-to-keep-state-parks-open.html
Here is the snippet that bites our off road system in the ass:
"The proposal, which will be heard by a Senate budget subcommittee Wednesday afternoon,
includes shifting as much as $40 million from existing state accounts for road maintenance, septic system repairs and trails and off-highway vehicle funds to cover parks' costs. That money would be used for purposes consistent with the original intent of those funds, Evans and Simitian said."
And the red part is completely not true.. the original intent was to keep our off road vehicle parks in order..
This will lead to them continuing to degrade and potential future closure IMO.
So they basically ignored us and I would think his constituents would have been important enough to get a little input from considering the letter pasted below.
I started well over a month ago with a phone call to his office.
After receiving this
From: "Winstead, Brock" <BrockWinstead@sen.ca.gov>
To: Senator Simitian <Senator.Simitian@SENATE.CA.GOV>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:11 PM
Subject: your recent e-mail regarding OHV funding
My name is Brock Winstead, and I handle transportation issues for Senator Simitian in his district office in Palo Alto. I'm writing to you now because you recently contacted State Senator Joe Simitian (or me directly) about state funding for off-highway vehicle parks.
There seems to be a lot of misinformation floating around about this issue. First and foremost, I want to clear up the misconception that Senator Simitian wants to cut OHV funding, eliminate the local assistance grants, or specifically target funding for an individual park (like Motorcycle County Park on Metcalf Road in San Jose, which many people wrote about). He has not made any proposals along those lines, or even expressed any kind of intention whatsoever about OHV funding in this year's budget.
Senator Simitian chairs the State Senate budget subcommittee that will, at some point in the next couple of months, make a recommendation about OHV funding (in the context of their recommendations about funding for everything related to Parks & Recreation). So far, that subcommittee has had only a very brief discussion touching on OHV funding, and they chose to "hold open" that item -- meaning that no action was taken. The budget outline from which they were working was from the Governor's January budget proposal, with this item originating in the Department of Parks and Recreation itself.
Let me reiterate that: neither Senator Simitian nor anyone else in the Legislature created the budget proposal discussed by the subcommittee. They took no action on that proposal as it related to OHV funding, and expressed no intentions about possible future actions. As with most parts of the budget, the subcommittee is waiting to see what the Governor puts in his mid-May revised budget proposal, which will be based on updated revenue projections, feedback from the public and the Legislature since the January proposal, and probably some changes based on the Governor's proposed ballot measure to raise taxes.
We're not sure where this rumor started that Senator Simitian has it out for OHV funding, but it isn't true. It is certainly the case that the state faces continued budget cuts this year, and pretty much everything is exposed to some degree of danger for cuts (from schools to healthcare to, yes, OHV park funding), but there haven't been any specific threats made against OHV funding by Senator Simitian. The only budget proposal out there at this point is the Governor's, and very little of that January proposal has been taken up by the Legislature.
One other thing, regarding the Metcalf Road park specifically. It receives money from the OHV "local assistance grants," but the decision about which parks get those grants is not made by the Legislature. Those decisions are made by the Department of Parks & Recreation as part of their annual grant application process. It is not within Senator Simitian's power to direct local assistance funding toward or away from any individual park. The Legislature will put together a budget that allocates some level of funding for the OHV grants, but it will still be up to the state Department of Parks & Recreation to decide whether Metcalf or any other particular park receives funding from that source.
You've done the right thing by contacting Senator Simitian about a program you care about. That's what good advocates do, and we welcome your continued advocacy. But I wanted to make sure you knew the truth about where this issue stands right now, which is much less dire than some of the information floating around online would have you believe.
It's probably impossible to entirely unring the bell of this misinformation, but I'd certainly appreciate it if you could share this with your friends and fellow riders.
Thanks for being in touch, and let me know if you have any questions about this.
Regards,
Brock Winstead
Office of State Senator Joe Simitian
http://www.senatorsimitian.com
855 El Camino Real, Suite 160
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 688-6384
(650) 688-6370 fax
brock.winstead@sen.ca.gov
So I called Brock:
"You have to contact this lady in Sac to set up a meeting"
I called her the same day.
She told me I have to email in a request, which I did.
Here is the email (which I ended up chasing her at least 3 more times to see what was happening. Not a single reply.
From: Bud kobza [mailto:thebudman@kobza.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 6:26 PM
To: 'stephanie.hineline@sen.ca.gov'
Subject: Meeting with Joe regarding Motorcycle OHV parks
Hi Stephanie,
Per our phone call I am writing to request a meeting on Friday the 20th with Senator Simitian.
My name is Dennis Kobza Jr. and I am a lifelong Palo Alto resident. My real job is Commercial Architecture
www.kobza.com , but this request is based on my interest in Motorcycling. I have been living in Palo Alto since I was one year old and started dirt biking when I was 8. ( I am now 53). I own the largest internet Motorcycle Forum in the Country and we happen to be based in Palo Alto serving the Bay Area and beyond.
www.bayarearidersforum.com
We have over 40,000 users the bulk of which are in the Bay Area. I encourage our members to ride the dirt as often as possible because of not only the fun, but to also enhance the skills that will make them safer on our roadways.
When I was young we could ride in Palo Alto at a few locations and there was a Police Athletic League track in Sunnyvale as well. I have been going to Holister Hills OHV since I was 14 and have enjoyed it every time. It is a great park. As a young Dad I took my sons to ride too and Metcalf Park and Holister Hills both became great spots for them to go to in their teens. I knew as a Dad they were in a good environment and could enjoy the activity as safely as possible.
I am also on two State Motorcycle Safety committees and have made presentations to both the CHP and the OTS.
I am dedicated to protecting our right to ride and places to ride. I am also a life member of the AMA
http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/ and our forum is the first ever Online Motorcycle Community (O/MC #1). We often engage in issues the AMA finds that affect motorcyclist and I am keeping them updated with our goal of meeting with the Senator.
I would like to meet with Joe to discuss the OHV status and upcoming potential issues with funding for them, so I can keep my forum members aware of what is going and be ready to pursue our rights to actively work to keep them open and in good shape for us and for future generations.
Synopsis of the discussion points for the meeting:
As I understand it this issue is going to be addressed soon and the $29M that Senator Simitian is considering holding "open" out of the OHV Trust Fund are General Fund monies. I believe therefore, there would be no net savings by removing them from the budget it and it will not help in fixing the budget deficit. In fact the money spent out of the OHV Trust Fund is often a key to keep State Parks open and staffed appropriately. Given that the OHV Trust Fund can only be spent in those program areas identified in statute and generated by user fees, registration on OHVs and tax from the fuel burned while recreating in OHV areas cutting dollars in this area does help to balance the budget.
The State of California budget provides funding for the 2011/12 Grants Program grant cycle in the amount of $21 million. The amount allocated for the four categories within the Grants Program that Senator Simitian is holding open ($21M) are as follows:
Operations and Maintenance (50%): $10.5 million - typically maintaining trails and paying for staff to work on the trails and monitor resources. Without these dollars resources become harder to protect, maintain and restore.
Restoration (25%): $5.25 million (plus an additional $1.1 million) - Over the last 2-3 years these dollars have repaired millions of dollars in damage and prevented cumulative resource damage. Cutting these dollars will potentially stop the work that has been started and possibly cause advances to be lost.
Law Enforcement (20%): $4.2 million - Over the last 3-4 years of the program LE has really begun to make progress in educating and preventing OHV trespass and damage. I fear the loss of funding would cause some programs to be eliminated completely, especially given the restructuring that is occurring in most Sheriff Departments with realignment. Without these facilities properly maintained and open I also fear that other State lands may be at risk of trespass thus creating more negative impacts against motorcyclist. People want to ride and will stay where they should when the facilities are there and the costs are acceptable.
Education and Safety (5%): $1.05 million - These are valuable programs especially for kids that get them into the outdoors with their families and provide great exercise, family time and begin to help them respect nature. We have many families on the Bay Area Riders Forum that choose to guide their children into the sport. This makes these kids as they grow older, both better rounded adults and it has a huge impact on their riding skills if they choose to ride on the street. I know this from my own history of dirt riding, motocross and road racing and the skillset it has given me to operate a street bike as safely as possible.
The regulations further breakdown the Operations and Maintenance into four sub-categories (Ground Operations, Acquisition, Development and Planning). The LE category is also broken down into three sub-categories: Local (the majority of which is Sheriff's Departments), BLM and USFS.
The areas listed above include the $400-500k that has typically gone to Metcalf annually. This program is more critical than ever given the tight budgets that all of the recreation providers in California currently have and the cuts that Santa Clara County is currently facing.
The $5.9M that is allocated to Hollister Hills is a project that has been in the planning for the last 4 years and replaces miles of deteriorated and damaged water lines, as well as sewer lines that have been in place since the 1960s. Some of the sewer systems have failed regularly and pose a resource threat with their proximity to streams and creeks. Hollister Hills DOES NOT have access to State Parks Bonds to make repairs like other parks have been able to do in recent years.
The financial impact to businesses that cater to off road riders could also have a big impact. The Motorcycle industry has been challenged for years both by economic challenges and the loss of places to ride. I feel it is of the utmost importance to keep and maintain the parks we do have.
I look forward to conveying this to the Senator and also becoming educated on his vision of the funding and the motorcycle OHV areas.
Sincerely,
Dennis
Denny "Budman" Kobza
Owner: Bay Area Riders Forum - AMA O/MC #01
Founder:1Rider Motorcycle Safety Campaign
www.bayarearidersforum.com
AMA #: 203453~Life Member
650-XXX-XXXX
** The above to a lot of time and homework to put together too..!**
Finally on April 30th I received a phone call saying "we can set up a conference call".
Butch had to stop by his office to get the phone call made to me.
She specifically asked my if I was the guy hanging around the office today..
(Thanks Butch)
A conference call is
in my opinion as that lacks the real give and take face to face and coordinating a couple of folks I wanted involved to share others interests (besides barf) was impossible to make happen in a two days.
His office is two miles from my house too..
Perhaps the detailed letter via Email about the for the meeting was too much good info..and he was scurred.
At this point I think a little demonstration Rally at his office in Palo Alto is in order.
Call out the press.. and get a bunch of riders groups to show up too. This is headed the wrong way.
Frankly I am mad that trying to work within the system had no result really and now I see this.
I hope whatever Butch and I pursue.. you will have our backs.
We will need the support.
Budman
