WOHVA: Working for ATV Road Access - The Truth on HB1632

[SPR]

I burned over an hour this morning reading through an informational release (The Truth on HB1632) from WOHVA detailing their goals and communications with multiple individuals, organizations, politicians in regards to the recently passed HB1632.

In short, I believe the leadership of WOHVA did a great job supporting all OHV users by pointing out the massive pitfalls of HB1632 and working to improve the bill. Unfortunately, they were not completely successful and opposed the bill.

A couple downsides of HB1632 include: The dilution of NOVA funds, Excessive enforcement/fines, Sneaky language that shuts down most OHV access until OHV routes are approved and engineered specially to address OHV use, and it selling out the motorcycle groups in favor of the quad users and industry.

The information provided by WOHVA really drives home the need have talented/fair folks organizing the support or opposition of a laws regarding motorized recreation. I was surprised by the actions of the narrow minded and self serving OHV groups and industry supporting HB1632 regardless of the toxic language in the bill. I'm not surprised the support by anti-motorized recreation groups were supportive of this bill and were able to toxify it.

,,,,Rant off, time to dig holes in my front yard.

[Grumpy]

Yup, it ain't even close to what Delvin originally intended, but, sadly, it is now law. I know there are some guys working on getting it reworked. We'll see. I think I read some of what you're talking about. Things went seriously wrong when Gregg Bafundo got hold of it. He's Trout Unlimited, and they've turned into a rabid anti anything group. He schmoozed some folks into backing him, and they bought into his BS, and you see the results. Basically, the DEMS in the legislature shot the original bill in the arse.


Thanks for taking the time to post this Steve!

[SPR]

Here is the link (copy and paste into browser) to the WOHVA informational release about the OVH infighting over this bill.

http://wohva.us2.list-manage1.com/track ... e2a1279f9d

It's miserable to think how much time folks OHV spent debating amongst themselves over this bill. It's kind of appears some folks were financially motivated and lack vision.

[klinger]

One of the things I learned from Deschutes county 4 wheelers was to try to get all the mechanized recreational users organized. I saw how the sierra club used the mountain biking clubs to shut down the badlands, then they went for their victory ride and all received heavy tickets for taking mechanical transportation into a wilderness area. Talk about karma. What we need to do is play by their rules and turn around on them and organize. We would sometimes take others (like rangers or different organizations ) along for rides. It allowed us to build a new trail and make a friend among the Rangers. They just need to know together were strong divided were weak.

[Grumpy]

Is there an echo in here