well, does not look like the sarasota area will get one of the parks. to many gray hairs living in this area! i guess that we will continue to ride where we have been or drive an hour and 15min to ride legally!!!! ;d
wow 110,000 registered bikes in florida. lets do the math ( 35.00? dollars x 110,00 = 3,850,000) looks like we see who got the shaft on the registration fees for new areas. all that money and we still have to drive on a dirt rutted out road at croom.
north port -- a local group of all-terrain vehicle owners has asked sarasota county to join its effort to get nearly 400 acres of state land put aside for off-road riding.
but george tatge, beaches and natural areas manager for the county parks and recreation department, said he's doubtful the county will help.
tatge said he attended a meeting tuesday of the atv-ad hoc committee, an organization made up of area atv riders and merchants, intending to discuss the environmental damage for which atvs have been blamed in north port parks.
he said he was especially concerned with pollution, soil erosion, habitat destruction, and litter at the myakkahatchee creek park at reistertown road and estates drive, and at county-managed oaks park near sumter boulevard and interstate 75.
but group chairman john wilson, owner of action power sports in nokomis, told tatge that the atv committee isn't looking to ride in those two parks and would instead like to see an alternate site set aside in the 8,600-acre myakka state forest.
tatge said wednesday he felt the group had good intentions, but that he did not expect the county to support its efforts.
a state forestry department report submitted to the governor jan. 1 lists 390 acres of the pine tree-covered myakka forest as one of three finalists to become an atv recreational area.
at a discussion about the state report in april, the sarasota county commission voiced opposition to the plan.
during this week's meeting, wilson defended the use of the forest by off-road vehicles.
"a state forest is for the consumptive use of the public," he said, noting that 33,000 off-road vehicles were sold in florida in 2002, and 110,000 are now registered.
he said the demand for off-road riding would continue to grow, and part of a state forest is the place to do it.
"i hope you guys will realize the value of letting the state give us an area to ride and get us off your parks," he said.
setting aside part of the forest for riders would help prevent further damage to myakkahatchee creek park and the oaks, he said.
"you'd get more people here (the forest), so people would quit riding in places where they shouldn't be riding," he said.
wilson said an atv park would do less environmental damage than any one of the dozens of golf courses built around the area.
