Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

We the combined users of snowmobiles, dirt bikes, enduros and atv`s and members of NJOHVA. Strongly oppose the following bills in the Senate Environmental Committee for these reasons: S-1059-Only provides for one legal area in NJ, when to accomplish a reduction of illegal riding there needs to be three(3) such facilities in north, central and southern NJ. Aswell as written the bill says if DEP is unable to designate and make available a site for usewithin one year they shall submit a report to the Governor and the Legislature as to why. This clause must be removed and the must find three(3) suitable sites.The state of NJ has already purchased land for public good,facilities are used for hiking,biking bird watching and other recreational uses. Why is the OHV community being treated like the proverbial red-headed stepchild???

The second bill S-2055 doubles registration fees, quadruplies fines and penalties and goes as far as confiscating a persons machine and being subject to forfeiture.As well we asked for $ 5.00 of the registration fee to be put in an OHV users recreation fund for the benifit of OHV users for trail maintainence of OHV trails etc. The bill calls for those dollars to go to DEP for designating and maintaining trails.As previously mentioned do other user groups pay to have trails designated for their use ???

If changes to these bills are made such as from one park to three ,and removing any possibility of the parks not coming to fruition, and fixing the OHV users recreation fund among other and the bills are tie-barred together. We might have reason to support higher fees and fines.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
May 13, 2009