Sedona Jeep School
05-01-2006, 07:00 AM
After our group selected representatives for the Arizona Off Highway Vehicle Coalition (AZOHVC: www.azohv.org ) we began to inquire about the status of the organization and its activities. They have been BUSY!
Here is an edited letter from Jeff on the political goings-on with which the AZOHVC is involved:
...The OHV community joined with Law enforcement and land Agencies in a work group to come up with a plan to help manage the growing OHV recreation and have consistent laws, funding and regulations to help keep your trails open. It took 2 years and hundreds of hours of meetings but we did come up with a draft that all of us thought would be a benefit to OHV recreation and its management.
This was taken to the Capitol to find a Bill sponsor. The Bill was sponsored by Senator Flake and Senator Bennett. The Bill # was SB 1508, but it gets very confusing:
Our SB 1508 goes to the Natural resources committee for its first read. But we have a problem. The draft of the bill that is being heard is not the draft the work group worked on. It needs major changes just for us to support. We are all assured that the changes will be made that we want...the Bill receives a pass in favor and moves on to the next hearing...(but the promised changes have not been made...)
(So) the AZOHVC and ATR now are against the Bill...The faxes, emails and letters you all sent in did convince most of the Senators to vote no on SB 1508, a simple majority was all that was needed to stop the bill and we thought that it was over so we could get back to work on things we could actually accomplish something useful.
OH NO???.Senator Flake really wants this bill to go , no matter how bad it is or how much we fight it. So it is now resurrected as a Strike all Bill HB 2686.
A quick explanation of a strike all bill. A Strike All bill is an existing bill that has already gone thru either the House or the Senate as something else and been approved. A Senator can go to the Sponsor of this already passed bill and ask that his or her more important Bill be substituted for this other bill. This is where owning favors and back scratching comes in to play. Senator Flake gets the sponsor of HB 2686 to allow Flake to present a Strike all to the existing Enterprise zones for business Bill and insert OHV regulations in its place. Now, the OHV bill we all wrote letters to stop (SB1508) is back and does not show up anywhere as being back unless you know to look under the Enterprise Bill under strike all and see OHV rules being added.
Not only is the bill back, it is worse than what we fought the first time.
2 more rounds of letters, emails and faxes and we are back to square one on HB 2686.
The sad part of all of this is writing in and calling really does make a difference, what is happening now is ??.the Sponsor of the bill will try to out last us. They will keep the bill out of the sessions until the very end, hoping we will get tried of watching for the bill to be on the calendar and then it will pass with no opposition.
So there you have it , it is very brief and I left alot out so you would actually read this but it does give you an idea of how this works an just why so few of us actually will get involved. I don?t blame any of you! It is an incredible waste of time and resources, any group that is serious about pushing a bill at the Capitol has its own high paid lobbyist.
So until this is important enough or big enough to affect big business or State revenues, we will have to do all this on our own and sink or swim based on how many of you are willing to take the time to write or call your Representatives.
Thanks for your support!
Jeff Gursh
This is the bottom line, people: "...we will have to do all this on our own and sink or swim based on how many of you are willing to take the time to write or call your Representatives."
Here is an edited letter from Jeff on the political goings-on with which the AZOHVC is involved:
...The OHV community joined with Law enforcement and land Agencies in a work group to come up with a plan to help manage the growing OHV recreation and have consistent laws, funding and regulations to help keep your trails open. It took 2 years and hundreds of hours of meetings but we did come up with a draft that all of us thought would be a benefit to OHV recreation and its management.
This was taken to the Capitol to find a Bill sponsor. The Bill was sponsored by Senator Flake and Senator Bennett. The Bill # was SB 1508, but it gets very confusing:
Our SB 1508 goes to the Natural resources committee for its first read. But we have a problem. The draft of the bill that is being heard is not the draft the work group worked on. It needs major changes just for us to support. We are all assured that the changes will be made that we want...the Bill receives a pass in favor and moves on to the next hearing...(but the promised changes have not been made...)
(So) the AZOHVC and ATR now are against the Bill...The faxes, emails and letters you all sent in did convince most of the Senators to vote no on SB 1508, a simple majority was all that was needed to stop the bill and we thought that it was over so we could get back to work on things we could actually accomplish something useful.
OH NO???.Senator Flake really wants this bill to go , no matter how bad it is or how much we fight it. So it is now resurrected as a Strike all Bill HB 2686.
A quick explanation of a strike all bill. A Strike All bill is an existing bill that has already gone thru either the House or the Senate as something else and been approved. A Senator can go to the Sponsor of this already passed bill and ask that his or her more important Bill be substituted for this other bill. This is where owning favors and back scratching comes in to play. Senator Flake gets the sponsor of HB 2686 to allow Flake to present a Strike all to the existing Enterprise zones for business Bill and insert OHV regulations in its place. Now, the OHV bill we all wrote letters to stop (SB1508) is back and does not show up anywhere as being back unless you know to look under the Enterprise Bill under strike all and see OHV rules being added.
Not only is the bill back, it is worse than what we fought the first time.
2 more rounds of letters, emails and faxes and we are back to square one on HB 2686.
The sad part of all of this is writing in and calling really does make a difference, what is happening now is ??.the Sponsor of the bill will try to out last us. They will keep the bill out of the sessions until the very end, hoping we will get tried of watching for the bill to be on the calendar and then it will pass with no opposition.
So there you have it , it is very brief and I left alot out so you would actually read this but it does give you an idea of how this works an just why so few of us actually will get involved. I don?t blame any of you! It is an incredible waste of time and resources, any group that is serious about pushing a bill at the Capitol has its own high paid lobbyist.
So until this is important enough or big enough to affect big business or State revenues, we will have to do all this on our own and sink or swim based on how many of you are willing to take the time to write or call your Representatives.
Thanks for your support!
Jeff Gursh
This is the bottom line, people: "...we will have to do all this on our own and sink or swim based on how many of you are willing to take the time to write or call your Representatives."