At 9;300am on Oct 14th in Tallahassee at the Doyle Conner Building we will be having the quarterly meeting of the State OHV Recreation advisory board. It is my contention, as it is other enthusiast members the the Division of Forestry has taken over $4.5 million from the T. Mark Schmidt Trust Fund, completely draining this fund, and they have used it for there own uses. Last year they used $2 million to buy fire suppression equipment and this year to cover shortfalls in salaries. As there is only one person directly attached to this program, that is excessive. This was not done by a Legislative sweep (we have proof of that), but was done by the Division of Forestry with approval of the Dept of Agriculture.
Jim Karols , Director of Division of Forestry will be speaking to us at 9:30. We need as big a turnout as possible for this. Many programs that we have been working on have stopped because of this. The $700,000 in grants we approved in April 2009 were stopped, after the state had signed contracts with the recipients. Some of these grants were to be matching grants for other grants, meaning this money could have created 5 times as much for use in the ATV area.
According to Chapter 261.12, the link below, these funds were for specific purposes and if not used, they were to be carried forward.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0261/SEC12.HTM&Title=->2009->Ch0261->Section%2012#0261.12This meeting is important to us, please try to attend.
