[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Feb-26-06 AT 08:49AM (EST)[/font][p][font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Feb-26-06 AT 08:43*AM (EST)[/font]

Moose1am- I realize that the majority of people who like the outdoors, hunting and fishing, are pretty solid citizens and don’t really want or expect that free lunch. But having been involved in these issues now for almost 34 years, I can tell you that most of them also have no idea of how all those favorite places came to be, or how they stay favorite places. In your post for example, you made the statement that you felt sportsmen should only pay the bare minimum for the service you receive. I obviously agree with that; but we may disagree on what the bare minimum is.

This thread began because several people here seem to be bent out of shape over one of IDNR’s fees that is raising from $24 to $36. Now that may or may not be too low or too high or about right. I don’t have nearly enough information about what costs that fee is supposed to be covering. But the people who are saying it is too high don’t have any information either, other than that it “seems” to high. I’m sure when it is all said and done we’d all rather that DNR make sound, reasonable business smart decisions about how to manage our various resources, rather than resort to voodoo, tarot cards or just hunches. I dare say that if they were to set the fee rates by asking everyone what they wanted to pay, they’d be out of business in a year or two.

That bare minimum you are willing to pay has to include the direct cost of the service you receive, the paper in the restroom near the ramp, the cost of someone to clean that restroom, the cost of the secretary that keeps track of the wages of the person who cleans the restroom, the blacktop road on the way into the restroom and ramp, the water and sewer bill for that restroom, the electricity for the light you want to help load your boat after dark, and on and on and on. And 100% of the infrastructure in all those public properties you visit will have to be replaced, remodeled, or refurbished every 10 or 20 years. That cost is also part of the bare minimum in a responsible management plan.

There is no free lunch. Period. Those stories about how it is free to get into a park in Ohio is a misperception. If you get in without paying it’s only because someone else was forced to pay those costs for you. That shouldn't make any of us proud. Taxes are not the state’s money. That is our money that the state decides how we are going to spend. If you get a free lunch it can only be at someone else’s expense, and if a person doesn’t understand that they can’t really expect to be listened to very much when they talk about what the “gumit” should do to make fishing better or cheaper or easier.

I’m sure this is going to tick some of the guys here off and cause more comments about the Mike Axsom show, etc., but it really gets old listening to people rant and run down some of the very best, most dedicated people I know, who work in resource management; when the complainers really don’t have any answers either. As someone smarter than I once said, “Any damned fool can be against something. What are you FOR?”