ORBA - OHMVR Audit

About a year ago, the Off-Road Business Association (ORBA), American Sand Association (ASA) and San Diego Off-Road Coalition (SDORC) signed a letter to California State Senator Bill Morrow asking him to request an audit of the State's Off-Highway Motorized Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) Program (AKA: The Green Sticker Program). Senator Morrow picked up the ball and ran with it. During August this year, the State's Joint Legislative Audit Committee released a 155-page report that sites several examples of misuse of funds from California's OHV trust fund. A summary and a link to the report; Bureau of State Audits Report 2004-126: Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Program can be found online at:
www.bsa.ca.gov/reports/summary.php?id=484

Examples of the misuse of California's OHV trust funds according to the audit include:

OHV trust funds were used to fund State Parks that do not allow any OHV use.

Trust fund money has been used to purchase "buffer" land that is four miles away from the closest State OHV area.

$38 million has been allocated to a new State OHV area that requires the purchase of five acres of conservation land for every potential acre available for OHV use.

Unreasonable amounts of the OHV trust fund have been used for efforts that have little or no benefit to OHV recreation in California.

Large contracts have been broken into multiple smaller contracts so that they could be awarded to a single vendor, thereby circumventing the normal competitive bidding process.

And much more!

Leaders of fifteen motorized OHV organizations that are active in California have followed up on the audit report by sending a letter to Senator Morrow listing concerns about the mismanagement of the OHV program. The letter recommends that actions including the following need to take place:

Senator Morrow is requested to spearhead an effort to create new legislation to fix the badly broken California OHV program.

Legislative hearings on the OHMVR Division and Commission should be held by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and the Joint Boards and Commissions Committee.

Money stolen from the OHV trust fund must be returned.

The OHMVR Division is given the authority that goes along with the responsibility to run the entire OHMVR program-without the undue influence that the current OHMVR Commission has.

Authorities should prosecute to the full extent of the law those state officials and private contractors who have participated in "contract splitting" to avoid oversight by control agencies.

The OHV community in California is united as never before and will continue to bring pressure on state legislators to fix California's OHV program so that it once again focuses on OHV recreation opportunities.

At one time the California State-managed OHV program was a model showing how a self-sustaining recreation program could be implemented where recreationists pay their own way to develop and maintain recreation facilities within the state. A total of seven State Vehicular Recreation Areas (SVRA's) were developed in the early years of the program using monies collected from licensing off-road vehicles and from gas taxes paid for off-road vehicles. The OHMVR Commission was composed mostly of members who were involved in OHV recreation with a member included from the environmental community. Right from the beginning, environmental issues were always an important concern for the program.

As time went on, environmental organizations realized that there was a large pot of money being collected by the OHMVR Division and decided that they were entitled to a share of that money. Since members of the Commission are political appointees, the environmentalists started lobbying elected officials for appointments to the Commission (the Governor has 3 appointments, the Speaker of the Assembly has 2, and the Senate Pro Tem has 2). Liberal legislators in the California legislature responded to this effort over time. Today, the Chairman of the Commission is the ex-Executive Director of the California Wilderness Society and another member runs a resort in the mountains where he does not allow persons with snowmobiles to stay. Only two members of the Commission actually have a background with on-the-ground OHV recreation experience. This totally biased Commission decides where a large portion of the OHV trust fund is spent. What's wrong with this picture?

Given the makeup of the Commission it should come as no surprise that the bulk of the funds that they disburse go to conservation and law enforcement. Millions are spent for trail "restoration" which the Commission has defined to be closing trails so that they will never ever be used again by motorized vehicles. By the time the cost to run the OHMVR Division is added to the funds dedicated to the agenda of the Commission, there is very little left for actual on-the-ground improvements for OHV recreation opportunities.

Hopefully the results of this audit will provide the hammer that the OHV recreation community needs to recapture our program and make it once again actually support OHV recreation opportunities in California.

Organizations signing the follow-up letter include: American Sand Association, Off-Road Business Association, San Diego Off-Road Coalition, American Motorcyclist Association, American Motorcyclist Association - District 36, American Motorcyclist Association - District 37, BlueRibbon Coalition, California Association of Four-Wheel Drive Clubs, California/Nevada Snowmobile Association, California Off-Road Vehicle Association, Desert Vipers Motorcycle Club, Duners, Friends of Oceano Dunes, American Motorcyclist Association District 37 Dual Sport, and United Four Wheel Drive Associations. A second signature page for other OHV organizations is in process.

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