Kansas Trails Update
All,
The purpose of this email is to follow up on Kansas House Bill 2583. As you should be aware, this bill went before the House Committee on Environment yesterday.
The following is a brief follow up from Michael Goodwin, President of the Kansas Trails Council:
Hi Everyone,
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The hearing on House Bill 2583 was well attended yesterday with about 20 people having to stand.* There were 7 people testifying in favor of the Bill and 13 of us testifying in opposition to the Bill.
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To summarize, it seemed to go well but the bill will not go away easily.* Many Committee members seemed to be struggling with the punitive effect the bill would have on our volunteer members.* Other members seemed equally concerned about the aggrieved*adjacent landowners.* There were several suggestions (even from one of the proponents of the Bill) to modify the language by removing the reference to "members" as potential litigants.* Amy Thornton from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (who attended our January KTC meeting) also appeared in opposition to the Bill.
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The following organizations testified in opposition to the Bill:** Kansas Natural Resources Council, Kansas Horseman's Council, Kansas Sierra Club, Kansas League of Municipalities, Kansas Wildlife (Federation?), Kanza Rail Trail, Audubon of Kansas.* Proponents of the bill included the Kansas Livestock Association, the Kansas Farm Bureau and a couple of State Senators.
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Several of us who attended the hearing debriefed afterwards and agreed to start coordinating our efforts regarding the Bill and begin collaborating on ways in which we can improve the State's approach to trail development.
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Stay tuned.
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Mike
In addition, the attached is a transcript of my testimony in front of the Committee:
International Mountain Bicycling Association
Earth Riders Trails Association
February 10, 2004
Kansas House Committee on Environment Re: House Bill 2583
Chairperson Freeborn and Committee Members:
My name is Ken Miner and I am representing the International Mountain Bicycling Association, or what we call IMBA, a not for profit organization established to create, enhance and preserve mountain biking opportunities worldwide. IMBA members and affiliate clubs have performed close to 1,000,000 volunteer trail work hours annually and created more than 5,000 miles of singletrack trails in the United States alone.
A little closer to home, I am also representing Earth Riders Trails Association or ERTA. ERTA was incorporated in 2002 in order to work with land managers to develop multiuse trail opportunities throughout the Midwestern United States.
Through IMBA and ERTA, I’ve worked in partnership with Missouri Division of State Parks, Jackson County, MO, Clay County, MO, Kansas City, MO, Kansas Division of Wildlife and Parks, the Army Corp. of Engineers, Johnson County, KS, Comanche County, KS, the cities of DeSoto and Lawrence KS to develop trails that benefit the citizens and communities of the respective regions in which the trail systems are located.
As a former business owner, and the current Director of Sales for an International Corporation, I appreciate the State of Kansas’ current cashflow shortages. I also understand and appreciate the value of mentoring and modeling from a successful template to achieve a desired goal. After all, the costs and time associated with reinventing a wheel are expensive and inefficient compared to simply using an existing design that meets or exceeds your expectations.
The State of Kansas has an opportunity to create a system of trails that will ensure that Kansas is a travel destination and not just a place to drive through to get to Colorado. The State of Kansas has an opportunity, by utilizing volunteer labor resources, to develop an eco-tourism base that will help drive the economy with little or no impact on current budgets.
The beauty of this opportunity is that we have no further to look than our neighbors to the East for our model. Our template. Our mentor. The State of Missouri has embraced their Rails to Trails system. By working with volunteer organizations to gain funding and labor resources, the Missouri Division of State Parks has created a trail system that has revitalized dead or dying towns by bringing in tourist dollars to areas that were either sleepy railroad towns or once thriving, but now dwindling; agriculture based towns. Missouri embraces volunteer trail work and trails partnerships to maximize its tourism potential.
In these difficult economic times, when state budgets are being cut to the bone, eliminating volunteer labor as a revenue source would add yet another hurdle for land managers at every level within the state to overcome in order for them to tend to the public lands with which they are charged with protecting and preserving.
Trail volunteers are a source of revenue for land managers. The cost per linear foot to add a primitive, singletrack trail is $2-3, or $10,560 to $15,840 per mile. In other words, an 18-mile hiking and biking trail system like the one located at Perry Lake State Park is worth $190,080 to the State. In addition, based on a scale of $.75 per linear foot, volunteers on this one trail system contribute over $75,000.00 annually to perform routine trail maintenance. This trail was built and is currently maintained with volunteer labor at no cost to the state.
Every time I open the newspaper, I read about the hard economic times that have befallen the State. Will increasing the amount of arbitrary litigation that 2583 brings help ease the State’s budget woes? Will allowing private landowners to sue state volunteers and volunteer organizations promote Kansas as a travel destination and increase the State’s revenue through tourism dollars? We need look no further than to Missouri to find a successful and profitable model of a Rail to Trail system that is thriving, yet we’re considering eliminating even the possibility of realizing a similar trail in Kansas with the introduction of 2583.
House Bill 2583 will add a legal burden to the State with the likelihood of increased litigation by private land-owners against State sanctioned volunteers. House Bill 2583 will eliminate a source of free labor for the State. 2583 will ensure that Kansas is only a place to drive through on our way to Colorado or Missouri. Large, out of state energy companies with gas stations that dot the interstates will benefit from House Bill 2583, but our local communities and towns will not.
For these reasons, we respectfully request that you oppose House Bill 2583.
As Mike indicated, our testimony was well received and we made some headway. However, we feel that this bill in some form, will make its way to the House floor. We'll follow the progress of this bill, and will keep everyone appraised of its status.
When the time comes, we're definitely going to need your help, support and involvement to ensure that this bill is contested when it is before the full House.
Thank you very much for your support and your efforts leading up to the Committee meeting. Your emails were received and noted by the Committee and specifically by the Committee Chair, Representative Freeborn. One suggestion I'll make for future consideration: When you send your letters supporting bicycling, please indicated clearly that you're discussing "bicycles". The term "mountain bike" offered a fair bit of confusion, because most of the Committee members have never been introduced to mountain biking (they thought we were talking about motorized vehicles). We're changing their perception of "mountain biking", but it will take some time (it is the government, after all).
Thanks again for all your support and efforts. Thank you to the experts from out of state that took your time to provide us (me, especially) with insight and advice on Recreational Trails.
A HUGE thanks to both Mountain Bike Access and the International Mountain Bicycling Association for their support and efforts! Mark Flint, President of MTBAccess and Jenn Dice, Government Affairs Director of IMBA provided us (again, me especially) with extremely valuable insight, research and information to help us testify against this bill. Please join Mountain Bike Access (
http://www.mtbaccess.com/) and the International Mountain Bicycling Association (
http://www.imba.com/). Your membership ensures that these organizations will continue to be able to fight for trail access and promote trail education.
Now, what I really liked was the fact that some many diverse organizations joined together to oppose HB 2583. Collectively, I feel we were able to change the opinions of several committee members and as a result, the bill that will go before the House should be altered considerably from the original.
Thanks again for your support and efforts. Hopefully I'll see you on the trails and not in Topeka.
A special thanks to Lisa Cox, Toby Wilcoxson and Brian Robinson for attending the Committee meeting and supporting us during our testimony.
Sincerely,
Ken Miner
