Bay Pirate

1st, we appreciate your input and it is not our intent to place burden on anyone including ourselves. I too resent the extra fee concept in this tax environment that we find ourselves in. 2nd, please understand that the Marine committee members are appointed, but basciallywe are "unpaid" volunteers giving up our time to improve our Marine Resources! I am diehard nearly uncontrollableredfish fisherman, another is an inshoreCharter Captain, yet another is a Commercial Captian, etc!

We welcome ideas that will allow us to provide funding formore parking and more boat ramps so that as time passes and our children grow, they too can enjoy our waterways with limited restrictions.

In order to understand,we need to separate County, State, Federal. We can only be concernd about county funding, because IF a piece of property comes up for sale that can be useful forwaterway access, we need to be ready to act quickly; that requires money or an income stream to repay a bond. I have been working on this fornearly 3years. With the exception of John Broxson's (SRC Dist 5) generous contributuion of over $200K out of his rec funds to purchase landfor addtional parking @ theOriole Beach Ramp, rec funds are almost never used for boat ramp improvments; Kudos to John for thinking out of the box! (that project took me2 years of "never give up work"!)

The only money finding it's way back to us with direct accessfrom the various taxes you mentioned is the money from the Boater Registration Funds from the decals we purchase. We considered raising the decal price, but the 1st dollar or $1.50 goes to the Manatee Fund; no help there for us! If you raise it too high,statistics tell ussome boaters willregister their boats in the next County; no help there!

So the realquestions are;

1. <LI>Do we need more parking at peak times of the year</LI><LI>do we need more ramps, IE: deep water ramps</LI><LI>If you answer yes t either, how do we fund it??</LI>

If you got some ideas post them or come to the meetings, we'll take all the help we can get!

thnx for your comments.

BP

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PaleRed

As an outsider looking into the situation I would like to say that a boat ramp fee can be good, but it can also be a burden. I live in Destin. If I want to fish a lot, it gets expensive. You can not launch a boat in destin for less than 10$, unless you know someone. That means that if I fish 3 days a week after work I'm paying over 100$ a month. Some people really can't afford that.

Not to mention that I have to weigh out if its worth going for an hour or two after workand paying the fee or taking the risk of getting towed or ticketed.

If there is a fee, there should be a yearly membership that is affordable, maybe even a yearly and a 3 month or 6 month membership.