trailgal
Member
With all the somewhat contradictory information out there, let's see if we can figure out what to get upset about, what to ignore, and how to respond.
1. This expose was written by one reporter with the Sacramento Bee who is known to have a very close relationship with PEER and the Wilderness Society. It's correct to question both his motivation and his facts. On the one hand, reporting how State Parks and Ruth Coleman participated in a cover-up of both the "vacation buy-out scandal" and the inaccurate reporting of funds in State Parks is a good thing, try to involve the OHV Division, or intimating that the funds in the OHV Trust Fund are up for grabs by the legislature is not!
3. The OHV Division of State Parks is not involved in this - in fact, they had no control of the budget, the OHV Trust Fund, or the reporting of the funds.
4. The Governor has supported us in the past, and continues to support the OHV Division today. We need to thank him for his support - really! CORVA is coming out with a letter to the Governor thanking him for his partial veto that restored some of our funds - let's reward good behavior, and send him our thanks.
5. An independent audit is a very good thing. Assemblymember Beth Gaines has asked for an independent audit by the Bureau of State Audits (BSA), and this is exactly what we want. The Department of Finance is the other state department that covered up this mess, and right now they are being tasked with investigating the very problem they helped create. Let's support Assemblymember Gaines, and ask all our Legislators (whether Democratic or Republican) to support an independent audit would be helpful. After all, if there's have nothing to hide, why object to an audit?
Actions to take:
Any questions, go ahead and ask, I'm here to help. Righteous indignation has it's place, I suppose, but smart actions are much better, and will get us farther.
Amy
1. This expose was written by one reporter with the Sacramento Bee who is known to have a very close relationship with PEER and the Wilderness Society. It's correct to question both his motivation and his facts. On the one hand, reporting how State Parks and Ruth Coleman participated in a cover-up of both the "vacation buy-out scandal" and the inaccurate reporting of funds in State Parks is a good thing, try to involve the OHV Division, or intimating that the funds in the OHV Trust Fund are up for grabs by the legislature is not!
3. The OHV Division of State Parks is not involved in this - in fact, they had no control of the budget, the OHV Trust Fund, or the reporting of the funds.
4. The Governor has supported us in the past, and continues to support the OHV Division today. We need to thank him for his support - really! CORVA is coming out with a letter to the Governor thanking him for his partial veto that restored some of our funds - let's reward good behavior, and send him our thanks.
5. An independent audit is a very good thing. Assemblymember Beth Gaines has asked for an independent audit by the Bureau of State Audits (BSA), and this is exactly what we want. The Department of Finance is the other state department that covered up this mess, and right now they are being tasked with investigating the very problem they helped create. Let's support Assemblymember Gaines, and ask all our Legislators (whether Democratic or Republican) to support an independent audit would be helpful. After all, if there's have nothing to hide, why object to an audit?
Actions to take:
- Thank the Governor for his past support and his veto
- Ask him to support an independent audit by the BSA
- Ask your legislators to support the independent audit by the BSA
Any questions, go ahead and ask, I'm here to help. Righteous indignation has it's place, I suppose, but smart actions are much better, and will get us farther.
Amy
