The Terminators at it again. Lets here your comments

[doug hodder]

Ken....dammit!!....you tripped my trigger on this one. Unfortunately I believe that a whole lot of this stuff is political repercussion from the elections. The only one that didn't cut any pay raises for legislators unless they had a balanced budget is the one that passed. This stuff was coming down the tracks a while ago. He put up 5 propositions all of which involved higher taxes and they all got voted down. No mention about maybe looking at the existing practices of spending and maybe how they can be changed....just hit up the poor SOB's for more money!!!

I don't know why we bother voting anymore. If someone doesn't like the outcome of the election, turn it over to the YAHOO's in the Judicial system and they will go ahead and do what they want with it anyway, regardless of the vote results...ie gay marrage. Me...I don't care about that issue, but everyone voted on it and it got turned down. I think it was the 9th circuit court of appeals that reversed the decision and let the camels nose under the tent. It ain't over yet regardless of the vote.

After some major flooding in the Yosemite Valley years ago, they didn't repair the campgrounds. It's a big environmental push to basically close all camping in the valley floor and the flood gave them the opportunity to close down a big chunk of it all. Some serious lobbying made sure that happened. I personally believe it's the plan for a lot of the areas...same thing for Dillon Beach. I just think that the environmental lobby has their fingers in many pies, and won't be happy till they close off everything to access. What better place to start it all than Calif, with so many mush headed people that have never been out in the woods and their only outdoor expertise/ experience is courtesy of PBS. If they were to close a lot of those areas...watch...they are closed for good, never to reopen again.

Up here in Eldorado County....new law...you can't camp more than 15 feet from an existing road/trail if you are out in the Natl. Forest. Has all the OHV crowd up in arms. Not even able to use sites that have been in existance for 40+ years. Lots of the trails are closed down as well....no maintenance on them or supervision so why close them? Cuz they can! Local off highway use clubs go in and clean them routinely and build water bars and do maintenance at no expense to the state or feds.

But, let's not do anything about all the illegals streaming across the border and sucking up the medical, tax, school dollars and all the other services that are nearly free to them. They say the economy would collapse in this state without them...I'm thinking, it is collapsing anyway...send them all home and see how it goes, don't see how we'd be out anything. After all...it hasn't been tried, just like closing down the parks hasn't been tried.

Sorry for the tirade, just my opinion. Doug

[doug hodder]

Well I guess If Arnold has his way we will all have to camp at Doug's house

Ken....I've camped in worse places...but this is pretty nice for me! I"m feeling better now......Doug

[satch]

Feel better Doug?
I have to agree with you on that Bro, it's quite a joke.
Gathering at Doug's place? Sounds good!

[doug hodder]

Just wait till our version of VAT hits us all......buckle up people, I'll bet there are more people bent out of shape than me then! Doug

[cherokeegeorge]

Doug, well said my friend. We didn't pass those initive's and now their going to punish us. Its time to turn the whole bunch out.

[S. Heisley]

Okay, Doug, I need enlightenment. You wrote:

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Just wait till our version of VAT hits us all......buckle up people

What is 'VAT'?

By the way, does anyone remember Gray Davis? The Governator was voted in because we hoped for better. Perhaps the problem is much deeper than the top guy's office? The fat isn't going to be cut by the legislators if it benefits them. They're going to cut things that they don't care about. I doubt most legislators go camping. To straighten things out, we probably need some sort of Jarvis-like initiative, developed and voted in by the people.

[doug hodder]

VAT= Value Added Tax....basically an overall tax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax

Doug

[MOKI SEAKER]

Here in Utah we don't have the problems that you are having in Calif. Doesn't mean it can't happen, just hasn't happened yet. We do have the envoriamentalist (sp) closing down roads and trails that have been used for the last 100+ years. Funny how such a small miniorty can make us tow their line. they take an area and make it a wilderness study area, and thats it, No law as to when it will be open again, I have a friend in the BLM and asked him and he told me wilderness study areas will never be open to travel ever again. If that is truly the case shouldn't it be inacted by congress, he says no the greenies just patitions the courts and that is it. Jim G

[S. Heisley]

Doug Hodder wrote:

VAT= Value Added Tax....basically an overall tax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax

Thanks, Doug. That is a lo-o-o-ng but also very informative article.

Mori:

I imagine the environmentalists would like to close a few roads in this state, too. They have discovered that even too much walking around a valued tree can compact the earth to the point that the tree begins to suffer. With what was once considered tallest live Redwood tree in the world, its suffering became very much apparent. When a couple larger, taller Redwood trees were found, California environmentalists took a different approach. The location of those trees was kept a secret. Very few people know where they are.

[Esteban]

It's the economic shock doctrine at work. Arnold and his nefarious buddies will claim the state needs to privatize state parks so they "pay for themselves." Next they'll start leasing out portions of them long term or selling some of them. So most of us will be unable to enter the parks, or walk on the local beaches, unless we're rich. I hate the idea.

About half of the coastline of San Luis Obispo County, where I live, is state park land. Miles of coastline has been added to the state park system in recent years at considerable public and private expense. One thing that is very nice is you do not have to pay to park your car or to enter most of the local state parks on foot. They're "free." Paid for by all of us through the taxes we pay.

Most notably the donations and purchases of the Hearst Ranch property between the ocean and Highway 1 stretching all the way from San Simeon to the Monterey County line recently added many miles of public coastline land. That stopped almost all of the planned development of golf courses, hotels, condominiums, large estate homes, and tracts of expensive homes on the land.

A large part of our local San Luis Obispo County economy is dependent on tourism. If people can't visit and camp at local parks and beaches they have far less reason to come here to vacation. The money vacationers spend here helps to support hundreds, maybe thousands, of local businesses and thousands of jobs.

Closing all or most of the local state parks will be devastating to our local economy. Foolishness by the Governator and his supporters.

The situation will be similar in many, if not all, other coastal counties.

I'm trying not to make this too political. In reality the threatened closure of state parks is all about taxation and politics. They're stuffing it to most of us in the lower and middle classes so the rich benefit.

[Beachbuggy]

If most of the campgrounds go private, it certainly can hurt the little guy.
I belong to another club and we tried to set up a small meet at a west TX private campground.
We told them we would be mostly tent campers with a couple of small campers & pop ups.

--They told us =---- No way jose!
Large RV's only

So we would be using less electricity than the large RV's and they would profit more from us, but they apparently did not want to let the "rif raf" in

[jeep_bluetj]

Interesting thread... I did a little bit of digging to try to support my previously stated position.

The Dept of Parks and Rec (which pays for state parks) is part of the Ca "Natural Resources Agency" which is somewhere around 4.2% of the total CA budget.

Of this, some 15% is parks and rec. Even though I have the brain the size of a walnut, When I do the math, 15% of 4% is a paltry .6% of total revenues. (less than .3% of general fund revenues). Even taking the position that every penny spent on a park is a total waste and should be stopped tomorrow, that's not going to even make a drop in the bucket for the overall deficit.

In contrast, some other agency spending is:

K-12 Education, 30.2%
Health and Human Services, 28.2%
Higher Education, 9.7%
Business, Transportation & Housing. 8.9%
Corrections and Rehabilitation, 7.3%

Even in the Nat. Resources agency, Department of Conservation,
Department of Forestry & Fire Protection, and
Department of Water Resources all have a larger budget than parks/rec.

(edit) -- I found the latest published statitistical report, and found this little tidbit for the CA state parks: "In the 2007/08 fiscal year, the total revenue
was 44.4% of the field operating costs for the System as a whole, compared to 50.4% the previous fiscal year." So fees only pay for half. But that really does mean half. (Parks also employs over 3000 people, over 3x what the PUC does, at a significantly lower cost)

In a nutshell, closing parks is to punish us/create a smokescreen. Not to save money. There's not that much money there. (strange to consider 840 million being "not that much money")


Nat Resources budget:

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/StateAgencyBudgets/3000/agency.html

Summary charts:
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf

(And in no way am I saying that the other items I point out are worthless, I like schools and firemen and keeping killers locked up. I'm just pointing out that the $$$ value doesn't mactch what the citizens of Ca are being told. And, if I was being political rather than merely factual, you could easily name the groups that have massive control over the budget by looking at what gets the most $$$.)

[Ken Fincher]

Looks nice Doug

What's that behind your wood pile?
Just kidding.

I hope you all had a great time over the weekend.
Did you do any diveing?

Ken F.

[satch]

VAT= Value Added Tax....basically an overall tax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax

Doug

Great, now they are going to tax the air I'm breathing

[Ron Dickey]

Well I just found out how California is going to start paying there debt.

I just got home & started opening my mail & to my suprise I open a letter & theres a picture of the back of my Teardrop Trailer
The letters from the Violations Processing Department, It's a Notice Of Toll Evasion they say that I evaded pay toll to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is a bunch of B/S I paid $9 to cross the bridge on 5/4/09 as we we're working our way home from the Dam Gathering & we did'nt cross any of the other Bay Bridges after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge we headed staight for hyw 1 to go down the coast.

this realy erks me is they are saying I owe

$6.00 Toll Fee (which we paid the man in the booth $9 for the car & trailer)

$25.00 toll Evasion Penalty

$31.00 Total Amount Due


Maybe the toll man putt it in his pocket
He was probably an elegal alien,(the elegals are what Arnold should take care of this would fix all of calif. problems)

And I really do not think we still have the reciept, If it was years ago probably would have kept it, But we've been across the GG Bridge so many times it is not quite as exciting as it use to be.

We do try to always avoid going into San Fransisco NOW it looks as if we will start avoiding the whole Bay area.

Now it looks as if we are going to fill out a statement & have it notorized which will cost $5 to $10 dollar + the inconvienience.

Maybe I'll send the bill for my expenses to Arnold

We all know how far that will go

Ken F.

I got one of those before all that bad stiff. they allow you to protest the fine they research the records the tapes and realize they missed one.

They found I had paid and then let it go.

Ron