I hold a seat on the State of California Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission's Stakeholder Roundtable, where I represent dune users of Oceano Dunes, Dumont Dunes, Imperial Sand Dunes and also DUNERS members.

At last Thursday's meeting, the Roundtable members were asked to tackle writing a definition for "off-highway."

Why? One reason is to clarify the definition for our own sake. For instance, several people have been cited for riding on Wash Road on ATVs because some law enforcement officer misinterpreted the definition of what is truly off-highway.

But another very good reason stems from some new rules regarding ATV access on public lands, forest lands in particular. Some very powerful anti-access bad guys have been heavy hitting the public land managers, trying to convince them that some unpaved access roads, previously legally used by ATVs, should really be considered "highways" under the new rules, based on their level of maintenance. If they win, a road like Ted Kipff would suddenly be off-limits to ATVs.

The OHV community has the chance to take a proactive role in this issue. If a definition is set at State level, it is customary for the federal land agencies to adopt the definition, which means all public lands within California would be affected by the definition we write.

In subsequent posts I will list what the current definitions are and in the next couple of days, when I receive the drafts that were started on Thursday, I'll post those too.

Thank you all for your attention to this matter.

Discussions on this issue will take place here.

Vicki