Washington rider group gets uppity

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Washington Off Highway Vehicle Alliance files lawsuit to block
transfer of ORV funds to State Parks

Olympia, Washington – 5 October 2009

The Washington Off Highway Vehicle Alliance has teamed up with the
Northwest Motorcycle Association to file a lawsuit against the State
of Washington to block the transfer of over 9.5 million dollars in
offroad vehicle funds from the Nonhighway and Offroad Vehicle
Activities (NOVA) account to State Parks. Attorney James Buchal will
be representing both organizations.

This spring the Legislature passed House Bill 1244, which transferred
the money out of the NOVA account. The NOVA account money comes from
the gas tax paid by offroad vehicle users and the license tab fees on
offroad vehicles (ORV).

According to the Washington State Constitution gas tax collected must
be used only for roads. To comply with that the state allows refunds
on gas tax paid for other uses.

In 1972 the offroad vehicle community supported passage of legislation
that waived their right to a direct refund of the taxes they paid for
ORV fuel in exchanged for having those same funds “refunded” into a
dedicated account to promote and protect their sport. Later on, their
ORV license tab money was added to this account too. The NOVA program
was established to administer these funds.

Now that all the money is going to State Parks and State Parks is not
going to spend the money on offroad vehicle recreation, this is no
longer a legitimate refund for the benefit of these taxpayers.

The NOVA funding is normally distributed by the State Recreation and
Conservation Funding Board in the form of grants. These grants are
awarded to governmental agencies such as the United States Forest
Service, the Washington Department of Natural Resources and various
counties. It is the primary source of funding for offroad vehicle
recreation and for law enforcement on public lands in Washington.

If this funding is not returned to benefit the taxpayers that paid for
it, families and their children throughout the State of Washington
will lose the healthy, outdoor recreational opportunities they were
promised and for which they paid their taxes and ORV tab fees, as the
trails they have enjoyed together are closed. And public employees
throughout Washington who maintain and patrol those trails will lose
their jobs.

The Washington Off Highway Vehicle Alliance and the Northwest
Motorcycle Association are nonprofit organizations dedicated to
protecting and promoting off highway vehicle and offroad motorcycle
recreation.

Tod Petersen
Political Action Committee Chairman – Washington Off Highway Vehicle
Alliance
Legislative/Land Use Coordinator – Northwest Motorcycle Association
P.O. Box 61161
Seattle, WA 98141
tod701@aol.com
www.wohva.org
www.nmaoffroad.org

 



Oh... sure you can go around...
but remember the sidehill in Idaho?
That adds another, uh, dimension.

from 8/23/02 (after driving/flying/riding shotgun all day, from sea
level, then riding from 4,900 to 9,714 feet, probably getting toward
midnight on my waking Eastern Standard Time, I was just starting to
understand the magnitude of western woods riding):
"Chris asked if I wanted to try some single track on the way back
down. I said sure, but we had some surprises waiting for us. We zigged
off the Kelly Creek Trail that we had ridden up and took the Beaver
Creek  cutoff.

We had already done the hill that Chris said was best done downhill
only. Those gnarly switchbacks were absurd on the downhill and
certainly would have been a nightmare to climb. Besides, we were
running out of light and they were twenty minutes behind us. But we
came upon a fallen Ponderosa pine that was enormous, had fallen uphill
and blocked the trail. Chris had a plan and it worked well for him. He
went way back on the trail and hit a big natural jump that got him
maybe halfway up the loose sidehill that we had to negotiate. He
landed sweetly and burned his tire to the top of the pine. It was very
impressive, but out of reach for my ability/confidence level. I burned
myself out by doing a routine involving walking the bike up in gear
under power, dropping the bike, and repeating.  Finally I made it, but
now it was dark and I was burnt out. It became stressful for me and
the fun was gone. I was screaming in my helmet and I’m sure it wasn’t
pretty. I have to apologize to Chris today. He didn’t know the tree
was there."

 

JayC wrote:

Sadly, the ORV'ers will lose. An old law says that fuel taxes collected
for fuel that is not used on-road is to be refunded. A newer law says
that the "refund" will go to a fund for building trails. Then the newest
law says the funds will go elsewhere.

What does one expect when one leaves one's fate in the hand of the
legislature?

 


Not actually true. There is no new law allowing them to rip off our
funds, they just went ahead and did it. The law on the books still
says they are required to use that money for trail funds instead of
directly refunding it to us. It was strictly a budgetary deecisoin,
not a change in law. In a world with fair and impartial judges, we'd
win in about 10 minutes in court.
Sadly, we don't live in that world, and I figure we have about a 1 in
10 chance at best. If we do happen to win, I'd bet that the
legislature will make an effort to revise the law to allow this in the
future. As I understand it, that would require a change to the state
constitution, which might be fairly tough even for the asshole
politicans in Olympia. However, odds are that the courts will make
that unnecessary.
I'm sure there is a special corner of hell reserved for politicians
and judges. I wish they'd hurry up and go there.

Tim H

 


I was a defendant in court on an auto-related offense a while back.  I
had run a few simple physics equations that showed for me to be
guilty, the cop car that caught me had to have accelarated to a speed
of over 160MPH inside of about 1/2 mile, which was of course
impossible.  When my lawyer mentioned to the judge that I was an
engineer and had mathematical proof proclaiming my innocence, the
judge replyed, "Yea, we get engineers in here all the time with stuff
like that...they always lose."

Always remember that facts have no business in a courtroom, and that
police always lie on the stand.  Always.

JayC