Last August a New Mexico man visited the summit of
Sandia Peak in New Mexico with his wife and five kids. They were approached by a
U.S. Forest Service Ranger who requested that they pay the recreation fee for
parking their vehicle in the nearby parking lot. They were going to be no more
than 15 minutes on the crest overlook and informed the ranger of this. The man
told the ranger that he had no intention of paying the fee and that he was willing
to go to court over the issue. He was given a ticket for non-payment which also
said that he could plead guilty later and pay a $50 dollar fine.
The New Mexico man sent his ticket in requesting a trial. The ranger who cited him appeared in the courtroom, and the U.S. Magistrate Judge seeing the case offered him an opportunity to ask the ranger any questions he had as testimony in reviewing the case. One question he asked was whether the ranger was aware of the fact that her boss, Brent Botts, had told him at a meeting that not paying the fee was really the only recourse that he had to registering his opposition to the program.
Following the questioning, he was offered the chance to sit in the witness stand and offer his own testimony. His testimony began with the fact that until two years ago, he had purchased yearly passes to the trailheads believing that the issue was as simple as the fees being returned to the jurisdictions in which they were collected. After realizing, through his own research, that the fees were not really what he thought they were, he began actively protesting the fees by writing to Congress, attending Forest Service meetings, and passing out leaflets to other National Forest visitors.
The prosecutor then questioned him and asked pointed questions about what he really thought he knew. The prosecutor questioned the man's claims that the Forest Service spent much on fee collection and little on resource preservation. He responded, "not only is it public information, but I have the GSA reports going back 5 years with an itemized breakdown of expenditures showing that the [Forest Service] spends some 2% of collected fees on their most advertised product - trail maintenance (which is mainly done by volunteers anyway) and some 30% just on fee collection alone."
Following his testimony, the prosecutor conferred with the Forest Service officials present in the courtroom, and asked the judge to impose a $500 penalty, one year probation, and bar him for 6 months from any Forest Service Lands. The judge then told him that he could impose the maximum penalty of $5,000.
The Judge then said that he was not going to send him to jail and that he agreed with his position. However, the judge did make the point that he had, in fact, broken the law and that he did need to be fined. The judge then asked him, "what sort of punishment do you think you deserve?" The man responded that the collateral damage of $50 dollars was enough and that he did not think that he should be punished for fulfilling his obligation as a citizen by properly disobeying the law; and that he took that responsibility very seriously. The judge agreed, saying that his position was clear and that it would not make any difference what fine he was given. The judge then made him promise that he would not break the law again and gave him a $50 fine.
In a court ruling Tuesday, February 6 - almost
one month after the trial -
Terry Dahl was found guilty of a misdemeanor for not paying the controversial fee
known as the "Adventure Pass" to use Southern California forests.
U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder rejected arguments in an eight page ruling
that the fee was unconstitutional. Although the prosecution threatened Dahl with a
$5,000 fine and/or 6 months in jail, no penalty was exacted on Dahl.
In what is destined to become a landmark case of the public right to free expression on national lands, Terry vows to appeal the decision. The court appears to have rejected Mr. Dahl's argument that he was engaged in the practice of free speech rather than recreating. Mr. Dahl, a resident of Santa Barbara, California is a frequent user of the Los Padres National Forest and a political activist who distributes anti-fee information to passers-by on the trails of Los Padres.
Although the ruling on this case backs the position of the Forest Service, the fact that no penalty was exacted of Dahl was probably not the ruling that the Forest Service had hoped for. As Alasdair Coyne of Keep the Sespe Wild says, "This can't be a verdict that [the Forest Service is] happy with." Coyne and other activists view this as a partial victory for the Forest Service as well as a partial victory for opponents of the Adventure Pass and the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program.
Dahl had his initial court hearing in April of last year.