Arlene Brooks, on NOVA funding at the WA budget meeting

[iaccocca]

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[Grumpy]

That's the Governess in pink to the left of the podium...There is some dissatisfaction with Arlene's presentation on at least one other site. Thanks for putting this up, Lee!

Stolen post:


I know Arlene is well versed in the 4x4 and political going-ons, but we lost a real opportunity to make it clear how big the NOVA funds have affected us.

She mentioned that the PNW has 2500 members. This is great, but NOVA funding affects over a MILLION people. This includes WTA, Evergreen Mtn Bike alliance, NMA, WOHVA, WOW, PNW, as well as hundreds of thousands of unaffiliated users.

Advocating to strangers that you want ~9 million dollars for 4x4 use is not going to go over well. It should have been stated that the 9 million affects well over a 6th of the state population, somewhere around 1-1.5 million people recreation annually on DNR, WDFW and other state land (excluding parks).

Not being able to eloquently speak is another issue. They had to ask her what organization she represented over again. ugh.

And when looking at what is ESSENTIAL government services, recreation does not fall under it. However, the point that needs to be made (and sorta did.. but not well) is that WE PAY FOR IT. its our money that goes DIRECTLY into that fund, its self-funding. Therefore it doesn't matter that its essential or not, its our direct funding and therefore our money should not be redirected to other state agencies.

I hope someone with better speaking skills can pass along this message on the 21st. We need to make sure the governor knows its more than 2500 redneck, hillbilly 4x4 users represented by an old lady that need NOVA funds.

And again, I think Arlene does good things for the org and the sport, but public speaking is not one of those things. If we're going to be effective, we need better representation here.

[Grumpy]

Another budget, NOVA funding thingy..

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Last night at the budget meeting, the Governors office suggested ideas be put up here:
http://transformwabudget.ideascale.com/

From that, I posted up the idea about restoring NOVA funding. If you can spread this around to other boards and people, that'd be great. This is supposedly one of the 'official' areas where the Governor will gauge how the people of Washington feel.

You can vote up/down for the idea here:
http://transformwabudget.ideascale.com/a/dtd/58614-9567