GREAT pro OFF ROAD article written by columnist in Bakersfield

[Richard Cheese]

Off-highway vehicles are legal in the state of California. In fact, they’re so darn legal, the state has extra special stickers for you to buy (at $50 a pop every two years) to show how legal you are.

But try and ride that thing anywhere and ohhhhh noooo, can’t do that! It might stir up some dust, make noise or crush a special weed.

OK, I exaggerate, but only slightly.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might have noticed The Californian’s reporting on how the Forest Service wants to keep off-road and other vehicles off of long time trails and roads around Lake Isabella and throughout the Sequoia National Forest.

The same thing is happening on all Forest Services lands, by the way, under so-called “travel management” plans.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management has closed trails and at least one massive and extremely popular riding area east of Coalinga.

That got me thinking about the failed attempt to create a state off-highway park here a few years ago and whether a new park is even in the works anymore. And where in the world CAN off-roaders ride these days?

Personally, I don’t ride OHVs and don’t particularly like them. But they’re a legal, tax-paying form of recreation for a lot of people. And frankly they, and all of us who’d like to see them contained to specific areas, are getting hosed.

In answer to the second question, off-roaders are only supposed to ride on designated trails on public lands or private land, with the owner’s permission.

There are eight state parks, nine parks maintained by cities, counties or other jurisdictions, 25 BLM sites and about 60 sites on national forest lands, according to a website about where to ride in California maintained by Don Dieterich (http://www.employees.org/~c...

That may seem like a lot of options, but not when you consider the number of registered off-road vehicles has gone from 356,000 in 1996 to more than 1.1 million currently.

As for any new parks, there are none on the horizon, according to Phil Jenkins, chief of the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation division of the State Parks, which has a budget of about $86 million a year.

Two things are keeping the state from spending green sticker and fuel tax monies designated to build and maintain off-road areas:

• Staffers and commissioners haven’t seen eye-to-eye on the division’s direction for about the last 20 years.

That was kind of good because it allowed the trust fund money (from green sticker fees and special fuel taxes paid by off roaders) to build up to $90 million. But it was bad because, well, we have no new parks.

Commissioners in the past haven’t been willing to open the purse strings for new parks, insisting instead on using the trust fund money to fix environmental damage caused by off-roaders riding illegally.

Staffers, meanwhile, wanted to open more parks to give off-roaders recreation areas that would keep them from riding illegally in the first place. Hmmmm....ya think?

To settle this chicken-and-egg situation, the two sides have been creating a strategic plan over the last year (you can read a draft at http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/?pa... and submit comments through March 25 at OHVinfo@parks.ca.gov).

Part of that plan includes a priority list for new off-road parks.

I might be slightly encouraged by that, except for the second reason there are no new parks on on the horizon:

• The state took nearly all of the Off-Highway division’s $90 million during its most recent budget meltdown.

But, hey, the state promised to pay it back so no worries, right?

Two Kern County Supervisors, however, aren’t waiting around.

Ray Watson has been working with two landowners west of Taft who want to turn their 640 acres into a private OHV park but have run up against resistance from adjacent oil field operators leasing land from the BLM. The oil operators are worried about liability and don’t want the OHVers out there.

“But I’ve argued that it’s better to have them in one place with fencing and the ability to monitor them,” Watson said. So far, he hasn’t had one the oil companies’ lawyers over, but the landowners are plodding through the environmental documents and plan to apply for a conditional use permit with the county.

Meanwhile, Mike Maggard has been doggedly pursuing land for a new park locally since 2007, when his attempt at working with the state on an 11,000-acre parcel north of Bakersfield fell through.

“The state’s process is inept, inefficient and obviously unsuccessful,” Maggard said.

He’s narrowed his search to two pieces of land but wouldn’t give me any more intel for fear that could drive up the price.

With tax money scarce locally, Maggard said he envisons some kind of public-private partnership to buy and maintain an off-road park.

“Green sticker money could be used and concievably a private operator could run it. Not the government.”

Particularly a government that doesn’t mind taking money from OHV riders with one hand and then smackin’ them around with the other.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com

it is in our best interest to air our plight out to the media, and let them report things like this. it will give the general public an idea of how bad we get screwed by the state every year.

i have a new rally cry too

OFF ROADERS

we number in the millions

to the state taxes and local economies, we spend billions

yet we are virtually silenced by our legislators