You may have seen or heard about the recent news report that State Land Department is considering shutting down state land to off-road vehicle recreation.

Off-roaders could be kicked off trust land: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...hwayRules.html.

Because of our shared concern over the loss of riding areas, we have started an effort to collect the names, addresses, and emails of individuals like you who want to preserve access to their riding areas. We believe that it is time for each and every person who loves off-road vehicle recreation to stand up and be counted. We have created an electronic petition that we hope can demonstrate to our public representatives that we care deeply about continued access to state land.

Please visit www.arizonaoffroaders.org to read and sign the petition. And then help spread the word.

You can see the people behind this effort, and become one of them, at http://www.arizonaoffroaders.org/WhoAreWe.asp.

Done.

Thanks, man.

I will post this here just like I did on Pirate. I haven't been on my board today, but I will assume that I'll have to deal with this there also. I don't know any of the individuals that are involved with this petition, but I don't think this is the right way to approach this particular problem. Arizona State Trust Lands are managed and owned like no other "State" lands in the US. They are no "Public". They were set aside by the federal gov't when Arizona became a state to provide income for 13 different Arizona State School Trusts. The Land Dept. is not elected nor are they subject to the same rules as our state legislators. They are appointed by the Governor.

We have spent countless hours at the AZOHVC working with State Trust on their views of recreation. They do not recognize any form of recreation on state trust lands. Now we all know this is a fact of life here in AZ. The STL are bordering on some of the best recreational sites in the entire state. So much in fact that when we drafted the AZ OHV Sticker bill this year we initially worked in conjunction with the state trust to ensure that sticker holders have the ability to traverse state lands without the need for a rec permit. The Rec Permits are an entirely different issue. Technically based on how the trust is written they are illegal. Because the proceeds of the rec permit do not go to the trust at all. They got straight into the states general fund. By their own mandate all income from the state trust lands must go to the trust. However these monies don't. They are slated to receive 5% of the Sticker revenue's however the advisory group that will be the administrators of the sticker will not be passing those funds to them if they are not letting residents utilize STL for recreational purposes.

The only thing that will help us here in AZ is for the legislature to change the mandates of the STL in the State Constitution to recognize recreation as an income potential and therefore any monies obtained for that purpose will go directly to the trust. This is currently what the AZOHVC is working on with our lobbyist.

Feel free to pass this information along to whomever you think might need it. Also feel free to give my email addy 1blkjp@gmail.com to anyone that would like to discuss the merits of going about this the right way as opposed to pissing off anyone that can help us in the state.

Great info Jack, I appreciate your involvement in working on this matter, however unless I missed something I didn't notice anywhere that this is a money issue? I ASSumed it was teh whole too much dust thing and how they want to stop ORR to keep teh dust down.

I saw a thread that seemed to need our signatures to help our sport/hobby and I went with it. Much like the ones that need our letters or whatever.

Again Thank you very much Jack and others for your involvement in working to keep our sport/hobby available for us.

12:53 PM Mountain Standard Time on Tuesday, August 26, 2008

By The Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) -- A state Supreme Court ruling means Arizona voters won't be deciding proposed ballot measures on transportation funding and conservation of state trust land.

Neither measure was deemed to have enough petition signatures and a trial judge had ruled that supporters missed a deadline to challenge part of those determinations by the Secretary of State's Office.

The Supreme Court ruling Tuesday upholds the judge's ruling, and a lawyer representing supporters of both initiatives says it means neither will be on the ballot.

Proposition 203 would have raised the state sales tax by a penny to pay for highway and other transportation improvements. Proposition 103 would have set aside more than 500,000 acres of trust land as open space.

http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/stories/phoenix-local-news-082608-voters.151d687b.html