Mr. Bob Bartsch of Pasadena was tried in
a Los Angeles Federal Court for violation of Adventure Pass requirements in the
Angeles National Forest on Wednesday, December 30th. His case was heard by
Federal Magistrate Roslyn M. Chapman and the federal attorney chose not to
prosecute the case. Mr. Bartsch had been cited on a U.S. District Court Violation
Notice for failure to obey posted signs. What was not stated on the citation was
that the sign in question was a U.S. Forest Service
(USFS) sign requiring an Adventure Pass. He was also given a parking ticket on the
same grounds. Magistrate Chapman stated that because the Adventure Pass program
is "discretionary," and that he was engaged in a non-recreational
use of the forest that Mr. Barsch had the right not to comply. Both
citations were dismissed. (Read the
transcript of the case.)
Mr. Bartsch had been circulating literature in the Angeles National Forest in December to educate the public about the USFS Adventure Pass and its parent, the nationwide USFS Recreation Fee Demonstration Program. He was cited while engaged in this activity. However, he was not given the usual USFS Notice of Noncompliance (NON), often used as part of the Adventure Pass program, nor was he engaged in recreation. The court decision also does not make clear whether a citizen is protected to exercise his or her First Amendment right of assembly, and protest the program by engaging in a recreational use of National Forest land.
Mr. Jeff Pine of Ojai, California will
go to federal court in Los Angeles sometime in January for a preliminary hearing
relating to his failure to comply with the Adventure Pass program. Mr. Pine was
arrested Saturday, October 17th on two charges: 1) interfering with a federal
officer, and 2) failure to stop when ordered.
Mr. Pine is a staunch activist against the Adventure Pass and the national Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo). He had learned many facts behind Fee Demo and Adventure Pass by the time he was approached by a USFS officer in the Los Padres National Forest north of Ojai.
Mr. Pine left the scene as the officer attempted to give him a Notice of Noncompliance for not displaying an Adventure Pass. Mr. Pine did stop, however, on highway 33 going south when ordered by CHP officers who had been called in to assist in the pursuit. Mr. Pine surrendered peaceably when confronted by the CHP.
It is of special interest that so much tax payer expense was incurred to capture an Adventure Pass violator (apparently a CHP helicopter was called to aid the pursuit) as the pass is part of a demonstration program.
The U.S. General Accounting Office
issued a report to Congress on the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo)
which can be found on the GAO's
website. The report takes a favorable view of the program, but also mentions
that there are some problems that need to be addressed, and a full evaluation of
the program cannot be made with seeing only one year's results.
The report regurgitates the figures from the Forest Service's surveys claiming that public acceptance is high and the fees have not negatively impacted visitation. The GAO made no efforts to contact groups opposing the program. However, the American Recreation Coalition, of which a spin-off group called the Recreation Roundtable claims direct responsibility for Fee Demo, was contacted by the GAO. They voiced support for the program, but also some concerns, including "that, in some cases, new or increased fees were being added to permit fees already paid by commercial recreation providers to the agencies, which represented an unfair and costly burden to their operations." Of course, no mention of the unfair and costly burden to taxpayers of adding a new fee to their taxes was made.
The GAO cites increasing figures for each agency's fee receipts. It also states that the combined fee receipts for all four participating agencies (Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish & Wildlife Service, and Forest Service) have doubled between 1996 and 1998, yet 85% of revenues came from the fees on Park Service lands. It is not surprising that this is the case since in most cases the park service implemented the program by doubling fees at National Parks and adding fees to Park Service lands without fees. The fees therefore give only a small boost to the Forest Service, and that boost is not much over the utterly cash-strapped budgets that the agency had before the program was implemented.
The GAO also reported some problems including failure of the Park Service to address using different pricing schemes so as to not price poorer people out of public lands, and that since some sites see more fee receipts than others, the 80% requirement of returning fee receipts to the area collected results in inequitable budgets for collection sites.
The Sierra Club has taken a stand
against fees on all public lands except for National Parks. Read the
official Sierra Club position on user
fees on public lands. This group brings to the fight against fees, a large
membership with vast information distribution channels and activists. It is
the largest organization to oppose the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, to
date. The potential
opposition this offers will be a big help in puting an end to fees.
For the second year in a row, The
Forest Service cut the Deschutes National Forest (in Oregon) recreation budget.
The Forest Service originally promised no new budget cuts when its Recreation
Fee Demonstration Program was put into effect. Coincidentally (or not), the
budget cuts were within a couple hundred dollars of the revenues generated from
fees.