Court rules Adventure Passes are illegal

[FishPOET]

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_19973360

[daniel_buck]

Hm... I never mind paying, because it helps keep those places open, right?

[Roger]

I have been saying this since 1997. This is probably the first time I have ever agreed with the Ninth Circuit Court!

Daniel, I know the Discovery Center was built with Adventure Pass tax money. I'm not sure where the rest has gone. I don't recall any new campgrounds opened and most of the trail work has been done by volunteers.

Maybe some of the guys know how the funds have been spent and will chime in.

[Lumpy Grits]

And this comes from the most overturned court in the nation.
They are better know as the 9th Circus Court....
LG

[sarah]

Wow! This is great news! Thanks Doug.

[DaK]

yeah, we will see if it sticks.

With the gov't we have in there now they need all the revenue generation sources possible. See how this plays.

[bigbearwheeler]

That's great news, although I'm pretty sure the Forest Administration hasn't been telling us everything about adventure passes from its beginning. As a local resident of Big Bear I've known lots of folks who simply ignored the citations and none of them ever went to warrant. Not gonna mention any names though. You just have to ask yourself whats really been going on with the Adventure Pass program all along? Was it ever a legal program or not. If the money actually is going to pay for keeping to forest open, maintaining campgrounds, trail mainanance, etc, then I'm all for it. But sometimes you just have to wonder, don't cha.

[Ol Man]

Guess I have a little different opinion than most here. I remember going to meetings some years ago in Goleta (where I was probably one of the few OHV people and certainly not a Sierra Clubber, which most in attendance were). I was absolutely amazed at all the uproar over the Adventure Pass. I had hardly heard of it at the time. I went to the meeting to try to keep trails open. The big deal at this time were some mountain bikers from the college and local hikers. The real purpose of the meeting was to address keeping what open. I left pretty frustrated. I did speak at the meeting.

As time would go on, I would hear people bitch about it. These same people did not seem more interested in what they were really losing....which was a place to recreate. Very, very frustrating to me.

Like many, I think that the public lands should be open to the public and we shouldn't have to pay. I also thought that the Adventure Pass issue was too vigoursly argued by many and that the real issues of closing access to OHV was the issue I would fight more.

I carry a bunch of day passes in my couple of vehicles that I use in the Forest. I scratch the date as required. I understand that monies from the Adventure Pass have been used as advertised. I have not done a search to see if true. It is just not that big of an issue, in my opinion.

As an aside, there is a lot of discussion at various levels of pay to play at many of our public lands. This includes State and Federal. I am sure you all know of the 70ish State Parks that are scheduled to be closed this year. I would like to not have to pay these fees (retired and on a fixed income, as we like to say), but I would rather have them available than closed.

[USMC 0369]

[COLOR="sienna"]Can someone clear this up for me? I am to understand that the FS continues to charge these fees during the appeals process?

2012 03 01 Forest Service Press Release
[/COLOR]

[Mike]

I believe that whether there is an appeal or not is irrelevant to California. The court case was in Arizona. Only if someone wants to pursue a lawsuit in California would the ruling be used as a precedent for the case. I could be wrong on this, but I think that is how it would have to work.

[karstic]

The Court case did not negate the entire Adventure Pass program. The case involved a specific location in a specific Forest in Arizona. A few years after the Adventure Pass was created, the Forest Service reviewed the program and created a set of criteria as to where the AP would be required. The plaintiffs claimed the FS was requiring an AP where it wasn’t required per their own criteria. The 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

Here's a good article explaining the case and ruling.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb...t-fee-20120229

[Roger]

Generally a ruling by a Circuit Court is applicable to the entire area within it's jurisdiction.