[LEGISLATION Page] [NYSORVA Home Page]
TO: NEW YORK STATE OHV TRAILS ENTHUSIASTS
FROM: NYS Off-Highway Recreational Vehicle Assn. (NYSORVA)
RE: Your Help is Needed -- ATV Trail Funding Legislation Renewed for 2002
Updated
3/27/02
**Please share this information with your club members and friends**
Your help is requested to get the
ATV Trail Fund re-established in
There is currently no funding
mechanism for public OHV trails in
ATV Trail Funding Legislation has been re-introduced for the 2001-2002 session in both houses of the NYS Legislature. Assembly Bill A.8781 and Senate Bill S.4922 are written to re-establish the ATV trail fund, which was diverted to the general fund and made unavailable for trail projects back in 1990. The state continues to this day to require ATV registration by law and collect a $10 registration fee per machine from ATV owners, but to date has provided no services in return. 2000 DMV statistics show that 69,503 ATVs and trail bikes were registered: that's $695,030 for the benefit of the General Fund (and over $5M since 1986) that will not be available for trail development!
In 1997, the Motorcycle Industry Council estimated a total population of ATVs in NY to be over 142,000 units, and trail bikes over 47,000 units. Comparing that to 1997 Registration statistic of 40,502, possibly less than 22% of the machines in operation are registered. That means that with the ATV registrations reported as of 10/00, there has been a 72% increase in registration of ATVs and trail bikes since 1997— Doing the math, we estimate our numbers are growing to well over a quarter-million!
Your action is requested in contacting your State Legislative
representatives and sponsors of the bills as soon as possible. Time is limited
for an opportunity for the bills to come to a vote in this 2002 Legislative
Session, and these bills must get in on the first chance for consideration if
they are to be passed this year. Your letters and calls will cause your
representatives to move this issue to the top of the pile if everyone chips in
now.
We respectfully ask that you write, call,
fax or e-mail:
At
a minimum, please contact…
·
Your Assembly
Member asking for his or her support of the ATV Trail Funding bill sponsored by
Assemblyman Morelle, A.8781.
·
Your Senator
asking for his or her support of ATV Trail Funding bill sponsored by Senator
DeFrancisco, S.4922 (you may combine the
letters to your district’s representatives into one).
And
if you have additional time, please…
·
Write to the
bill sponsors to express your appreciation for taking our needs seriously (you
may combine the letters to the sponsors into one).
·
Copy your note
to the Senate bill sponsor to the Majority Leader Sen. Bruno.
·
Copy your note
to the Assembly bill sponsor to Speaker Silver.
·
Copy all your
notes to Governor Pataki.
If
this is all a bit much, please at least write to your district’s Senator and
Assembly Member.
Three Sample Letters are provided at the bottom of this article for cut
& paste into your word processor.
How to look up the information on your
district’s representatives:
Use this excellent web site to look up all
your representatives by ZIP code, name or district:
Project
Vote Smart (includes addresses, phone/fax
and e-mail links for reps'
(The above link goes directly to their NYS search page. Their base address is http://www.vote-smart.org/.)
If you have a problem with the link above,
try these alternatives on state-run web sites:
[Who is my Senator?]
[Who is my Assemblyman?]
If e-mailing, be sure to include your full name and mailing address as e-mail without may be discarded, and you will likely receive no response.
Please express your appreciation to
the following sponsors:
2001 Assembly Bill Sponsor--
Rep. Joseph D. Morelle
New York State Assembly
LOB 716
Albany, NY 12248
Phone: 518-455-5373, Fax 518-455-5647
E-mail: morellj@assembly.state.ny.us
(be
sure to include a return mailing address or your email may be ignored)
2001 Senate Bill Sponsor--
Senator John A. DeFrancisco
New York State Senate
LOB 903
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-3511, Fax 518-426-6952
E-mail: jdefranc@senate.state.ny.us
Additional addresses:
Senate Majority Leader--
Sen. Joseph L. Bruno
LOB 909
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-3191, Fax 518-455-2448
E-mail: bruno@senate.state.ny.us
Assembly Speaker--
Rep. Sheldon Silver
New York State Assembly
LOB 932/CAP 349
Albany, NY 12248
Phone: 518-455-3791, Fax-Albany 518-455-5459, in District 212-385-6799
E-mail: speaker@assembly.state.ny.us
Office of the Governor--
Governor George E. Pataki
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
Phone: 518-474-8390 or 518-474-7516
Fax 518-473-7669
E-mail: gov.pataki@chamber.state.ny.us
Thank you for your help in this matter,
Alex Ernst
NYSORVA Communications Director
For information about NYSORVA on the above memo please reply to Alex@nysorva.org.
[Back to NYSORVA Home Page]
SAMPLE LETTERS
A personalized hand written letter to the officials noted above is always best. But if you don't have the time for that, copy and paste the letters below into your word processor (or just "Save As Text File" this page to open and edit).
Copy this letter (exclude these instructions!) and distribute 2
copies to each of your members, 1-each to be addressed to the members' local
Senator, and to the members' local Assembly Member. Use the Project
Vote Smart link to determine the correct address to fill in. Each letter
should be signed at the bottom with the name, address, and phone number of
the sender printed below the signature. Letters without return addresses
are thrown away! Each letter should be individually mailed in hand-addresses
envelopes for best results.
The Honorable Sen. ___________________
___________________
The Honorable Rep. ___________________
___________________
RE: 2002 ATV Trail Funding Bills A.8781 and S.4922
Dear Senator and Assemblyman,
I am an ATV/trail bike rider and a voter in your district and want to bring to your attention the matter of a bill that I would like you to see passed into law. The new bills call for the direction of a portion of each ATV registration fee collected by DMV to a trail fund and provides that cities, towns, villages, counties, and organizations may apply for monies from the fund for the development and maintenance of all terrain vehicle trails and facilities in the various counties of the state.
So that I may have a legal place to ride my ATV or trail bike, a trail fund is needed to support ATV trail development and maintenance. By directing funding to private and municipal lands, State lands are protected. And for clubs trying to develop trails on private land, where most of the trail should go, they face a difficult funding problem without passage of this law. This bill would establish a funding mechanism analogous to the very successful snowmobile trail fund that supports the vast network of official state trails. The State and ATV users like me will benefit much in the same ways as we have with the snowmobile trail fund.
Thank you for your kind consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
Copy this letter (exclude these instructions!) and distribute 2 copies
to each of your members, 1-each to go to Senator DeFrancisco and Assemblyman
Morelle. Each letter should be signed at the bottom with the name, address,
and phone number of the sender printed below the signature. Letters without
return addresses are thrown away! Each letter should be individually mailed in
hand-addresses envelopes for best results.
The Honorable
903
The Honorable
926
RE: ATV Trail Funding Bills A.8781 and S.4922
Dear Senator DeFrancisco and Assemblyman Morelle:
I am writing you today to thank you for sponsoring of bills in the 2002 Session to re-establish the all terrain vehicle trail development and maintenance fund under the jurisdiction of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. This legislation proposes the direction of a portion of each ATV registration fee collected by DMV to a dedicated trail fund and provides that cities, towns, villages and counties may apply for monies from the fund for the development and maintenance of all terrain vehicle trails and facilities.
With the re-introduction of this legislation, you recognize that ATV and
trail bike use is a valid form of recreation that adds to citizens' quality of
life and to the economy of
I write to you both today to request that you continue to work together to ensure the momentum of the most current versions of the bills. Furthermore, please see to it that these bills be swiftly moved through the appropriate committees so that they are expeditiously reported to the respective bodies for a final vote.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
(c) 1999-2002 NYSORVA, Inc. All rights reserved. The above text constitutes an
expression of opinion by NYSORVA staff and must not be construed as legal
advice of any kind.
Updated