• A Hearty Welcome to DCR Commissioner Richard Sullivan
• New Governor, New Rep’s and A New SAM Legislative Agenda
• Congratulations to The Honorable Senator Ben Downing
• Smooth Trails and Partnerships
• Strong Partnerships Build Strong Trails
• Now is the Time to Talk to the Candidates

For most of us, the idea of managing a State Park system would seem a daunting and almost impossible task. But, Richard Sullivan, former mayor of the city of Westfield, has done just that – he has accepted this task. And, so, on May 23, 2007, Ian Bowles, Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEOA), introduced Richard Sullivan as the new Commissioner of the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). He began his new position June 11. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Commissioner Sullivan and found him to be friendly, open and determined to resolve the issues and implement many improvements to the lands managed by the DCR.

Elected as Mayor of the city of Westfield in 1994, Sullivan left that post to take his new position at the DCR. He graduated from Westfield High School in 1977, from Bates College in 1981 and from Western New England Law School in 1984. He is a partner in a Springfield, MA. law firm. He is a past President of the Massachusetts Mayors Association, Chairman of the Turnpike Advisory Board and a member of the Governors Local Advisory Committee. While he was mayor, Richard founded and presided over the Winding River Land Conservancy which successfully protected 1,700 acres of land in Hampden County. Richard is married, has three children, is very active with his kids and enjoys golfing and gardening. In addition, he has had occasion to enjoy the sport of snowmobiling.

I asked Richard how he felt about his new position. He is “very impressed by the staff. They are committed to the State Parks. Their job is a passion and they look at it with pride.” He “has spoken with both Governor Patrick and Secretary Bowles” and he “wants the Park system to succeed and to bring the Parks back to a World Class Level.” He sees “an immediate job to get resources on the front line to improve the infrastructure on the ground in both the Urban Parks and the State Parks.”

I mentioned that snowmobilers perform a lot of volunteer efforts in the Parks and I asked Richard to comment. He “supports a program to expand these partnerships, to build that basis of support. Partnerships are invaluable in what they bring to the Parks.” He “wants to build support legislatively also. It is all about all kinds of partnerships.” I asked him how can we, as snowmobilers, help him achieve his goals and he stated, “Let’s look to partnerships that help us provide better experiences in the State Parks. It’s a force you can’t ignore.” And, on the issue of land access, Richard stated that he “wants to balance the needs of the infrastructure and what works best for everybody.”

Commissioner Sullivan has a big task in front of him. He has to manage the 450,000 acres that are owned, operated and maintained by the DCR. This includes forests, campgrounds, beaches, lakes, golf courses, skating rinks and a multitude of other properties and facilities in the State. And he has to do this with a budget that was essentially “level-funded” at $89.3 million. And, only recently, has the legislature seen fit to add only another $10 million to the DCR budget for fiscal 2008. Please join me in congratulating and welcoming DCR Commissioner Richard Sullivan in his new position and join me in letting him know that we are here to help him improve our State Parks. You may reach Commissioner Sullivan by writing to him at DCR, 251 Causeway St, Suite 600, Boston, Ma. 02114 or by calling 617-626-1250 or faxing 617-626-1351.

I hope all of you have been able to do some riding somewhere this past season. Our riding season did not start out very well, but, our legislative effort did have a very good start for the new two-year legislative session which runs from Jan. 1st, 2007 through Dec. 31st, 2008. For this session we have a new Democratic Governor, some new Reps and a new legislative agenda for the Snowmobile Association of Massachusetts (SAM).

The SAM Legislative committee worked hard to get bills filed to implement six improvements for our sport. All of the SAM bills were filed with the legislature on time by the Jan. 10th deadline. I would like to say thank you to Randy Toth, who is chairman of the SAM Legislative Committee and the other members of the Legislative team for their efforts in creating, developing, and helping file the SAM bills.

The current two-year session of the legislature could prove to be very interesting. Our legislators have filed 6,308 bills for this session and this is the first time in 16 years that we have had both a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Legislature. This could mean a much more conducive atmosphere to get legislation passed. It could also mean improved communication between the State Agencies and the Legislature.

The six topics the SAM legislative team has filed legislation for are all equally important and they comprise a good overall legislative strategy. The issues are not listed in any particular order of importance and they are as follows:

SAFETY TRAINING: This bill will establish a safety training program that will help educate everyone, especially our younger riders about safe riding and the rules of our sport. Please thank Rep. William Pignatelli (D), Lenox for his help with this bill.

TRAIL PERMIT: This bill will strengthen the trail permit program by broadening the coverage to include State Parks because SAM clubs do much trail maintenance in our Parks. Please thank Rep. Steve Kulik (D), Worthington for his help with this bill.

SEAT on DCR COUNCIL: This bill would create an additional seat for a snowmobile representative on the Stewardship Council for the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and would finally provide a formal voice to take part in the decisions that are so critical to our sport. Please thank Rep. George Peterson (R), Grafton for his help in getting this bill filed.

ANTIQUE SNOWMOBILE REGISTRATION: This bill would create a unique registration for antique snowmobiles. Please thank Rep. William Pignatelli (D), Lenox for his help with this bill.

DUI: SAM is again filing a bill to strengthen the laws to deal with DUI or Snowmobiling while Intoxicated. Please thank Rep. Anne Gobi for (D), Spencer her help in getting this bill filed and also Geoffrey Hall (D), Westford and co-sponsor Stephen Cannesa (D), for filing a similar bill.

TAX REBATE: This bill will provide tax relief for landowners who allow their land to be used for recreational purposes and is our way of thanking the landowners who form the foundation of our trial system. Please thank Rep William Pignatelli (D), Lenox for his help with getting this bill filed.

All of these bills will help our sport in Massachusetts. These bills will all be assigned a number and they will be going through hearings. It will take not only the efforts of the Legislative Team but also all of you, your friends and your neighbors talking, calling and writing to their legislators to get some or all of these bills passed.

I hope you will all enjoy the coming spring and summer season and I hope that when I write this fall that I will have good news about some of our legislation. Thanks and hope to see you all in Boston.

When former State Senator Andrea Nuciforo announced he would not be seeking re-election, Ben Downing knew he wanted to enter the race for this elective office. Ben won a very tight, five-way Democratic primary and then went on to win the general election and is now the State Senator for the Berkshire-Hampshire-Franklin Senate District. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Senator Ben Downing and found him to be very excited about beginning his new position and bringing many improvements to his district. As he has shown throughout the campaign, Ben is well prepared for the work and the challenges for the office of State Senator. He has been close to politics all his life. Ben is the oldest son of the late Berkshire District Attorney Gerard Downing. He grew up in Pittsfield and graduated from St. Joseph Central High School. He then attended Providence College and achieved a degree in Political Science. After college, Ben worked in the Washington D.C. offices of U.S. Representative William Delahunt (D-Quincy) and Richard Neal (D-Springfield). He then joined the staff of U.S. Representative John Olver (D-Amherst). Ben served as a senior advisor to John Olver on housing, budget and tax issues and worked with State and local elected officials and citizens on federally related issues. Ben is currently completing a Master’s degree in Public Policy at Tufts University.

Ben would like to increase Economic Development within his district. He wants to see more investment in the telecommunications infrastructure by providing increased access to Broadband. He will work to increase early education for children and to lower student/teacher ratios. He will also work to ensure that the new health care reform is patient-centered and will benefit all. Ben is also aware that the State’s Park system is under funded, that volunteers are doing a lot of work and that the State should be responsible for ensuring that we have a “World Class” Park system. There are 48 towns and cities in Ben’s district and Ben invites everyone to feel free to contact him and to use him as a resource. You may reach Ben by mail at 20 Bank Row, suite 202, Pittsfield, Mass.01201; or by e-mail at bdowning@bendowning.org, or by calling 413-499-3454.

If you live in the following towns, The Honorable Senator Ben Downing is your new State Senator: Adams, Alford, Becket, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Dalton, Egremont, Florida, Great Barrington, Hancock, Hinsdale, Lanesboro, Lee, Lenox, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Ashford, New Marlborough, North Adams, Otis, Peru, Pittsfield, Richmond, Sandisfield, Savoy, Sheffield, Stockbridge, Tyringham, Washington, West Stockbridge, Williamstown, Windsor, Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Huntington, Middlefield, Plainfield, Westhampton, Williamsburg, Worthington, Ashfield, Charlemont, Conway, Hawley, Heath, Monroe and Rowe

We’ve all put a lot of volunteer time into our sport this past fall season; attending meetings, doing fundraisers and trail work. But now the snow is falling, the old and the new sleds are ready to ride and we are looking for the last ingredient to a good day of riding – Groomed Trails. Groomed trails throughout Massachusetts are the result of the hard work performed by the personnel in both the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and the club members of the Snowmobile Association of Massachusetts (SAM). The task of coordinating and managing the fleet of grooming equipment for the DCR in the Berkshires is that of Bob Mellace, the Western Region Director for the DCR. The DCR operates and maintains several important pieces of grooming equipment in the western region.

The newest machine the DCR owns and operates is a 2005 Bombardier BR-180. This machine is currently garaged at Clarksburg State Park. This machine and its drag are primarily used to groom Mt. Greylock State Reservation, Beartown State Forest and Savoy Mountain State Forest. Bob also recognizes and appreciates the help provided by the Adams Sno-Drifter Snowmobile Club to groom the Adams Road access to Greylock.

The DCR also has a 1995 Ford Tractor with a Mogul-Master style drag. This piece of equipment is both garaged and used to groom the snowmobile trails at October Mountain State Forest. Bob also appreciates the help provided by the Berkshire Snow-Seekers Snowmobile Club who are responsible for the excellent grooming work done at Pittsfield State Forest. There is a DCR-owned “Track-Truck” which is used to groom trails in both Dubuque Memorial State Forest (Hawley) and in Savoy Mountain State Forest. This piece of equipment can travel over the highway, so it does not require trailering. There is also a smaller “Bombi” that is sometimes used to groom trials in Tolland State Forest.

The Berkshires offer up a very extensive trail system consisting of thousands of acres for snowmobiling. The task of putting the “finishing touch” of grooming on such a vast trail system is a very substantial task. As we can see, this task is being accomplished by a combination of the men, women and machines of the DCR and the SAM clubs. But both the DCR and the clubs need help with this effort. I asked Bob where he thought the DCR could use more help with grooming and he replied, “The DCR could use more help in Beartown State Forest.” It should also be mentioned that some of this equipment must be transported from one State Park to another. And, to further underscore the need for more grooming equipment, for the 2006-2007 round of grants administered by the DCR, the SAM clubs themselves have submitted applications for additional grooming equipment totaling over $180,000 thousand dollars.

We can work to build an even stronger “partnership” between the DCR and the SAM clubs that would further improve the grooming of this trail system. We in SAM can ask ourselves “Where do we want to be in 2 years or 5 years?” Perhaps the timing is right to finish developing a 5-year plan for grooming in Massachusetts. This could be part of the Strategic Plan Part II, that SAM continued work on over this past summer.

As always, let’s all give the “groomer guys and girls” from both the DCR and the SAM clubs a very big THANK YOU when we pass them on the trials. See you all on the trails.

Thanks to the efforts and hard work of all the SAM clubs, there exists a substantial trail system for snowmobiling in Massachusetts. A lot of the pieces to this system of trails are rather firm and remain in place from year-to-year. The uniformity that exists in sections of our trails is possible only through the “partnerships” the clubs have built with both the private and public landowners.

There remain, however, numerous sections of land that are at the same time both critical to our overall trail system but are “CLOSED” to snowmobiling. If we are to begin “tying” these closed sections back into our trail system we should look at both; 1) new groups to partner with and, 2) new ways to strengthen our current “partnerships”.

One of the partners with our trail system is the Department of Conservation and Recreation or DCR. The DCR is the largest landowner in the state with almost 450,000 acres. The DCR lands include the State Parks such as Greylock, the old MDC lands such as the Quabbin watershed and several Rail-Trails such as the Ashuwiltoocook in Pittsfield. Parts of some of these lands are potentially integral to our trail system.

The future will require us to utilize newer and improved strategies to reinforce our partnership with large State Agencies such as the DCR and Fisheries and Wildlife. There’s an old saying that goes “If you want a friend, you must first of all be a friend.” This is the basic principle our clubs have used when building relationships with private landowners and it should be no different when dealing with large State Agencies.

It has been widely published that funding for the DCR has decreased over the last decade and a backlog of repairs to the infrastructure is now estimated to cost approx. $600 million. National surveys also show Massachusetts to rank 48th out of the 50 States in providing funding for its’ park system. The DCR and some associated groups are looking for some “friends” to provide much needed assistance to turn this situation around.

So, what new strategies can we utilize? We should consider joining, working with and becoming “friends” with these groups because they can have goals similar to ours.

One of the groups formed to help improve our State Parks is the Conservation and Recreation Campaign or CRC. The CRC was fashioned by former DCR commissioner Katherine F. Abbott. This group is working to elevate the awareness of the legislature through education and information. The CRC has much support throughout the State, including current DCR commissioner, Stephen Burringtion, who is echoing the same message and approach as the CRC. As snowmobilers, we could advocate for additional funding during the winter season to maintain trails and parking areas so please consider mentioning these concerns to your representatives. The website for the CRC is www.conservationandrecreationcampaign.org.

The DCR itself has formed the Office of Public Private Partnerships or OPPP. This department has the goal of injecting private funding into the revenue stream to help maintain the Park system through a matching grant process. This office has successfully combined $1.5 million of State funds with matches of $2.3 million of private monies coming from 35 private associations to help complete over 40 projects. The DAR State Forest in Goshen is in need of some picnic shelters. Please consider partnering with OPPP to help provide these items as they would be nice to have while snowmobiling through DAR. Pittsfield State Forest is in need of culvert repair near Berry Pond. If this is a winter trail we could join our friends and get this job done also. Mt. Greylock State Reservation in Lanesborough is perhaps the premier snowmobile destination in the State. The benches at the Thunder Bolt shelter are in need of repair and the tower interior needs painting. I believe our Association can gain much by becoming involved in helping complete some of these projects. The website for the OPPP is www.mass.gov/envir/opp/.

One “big” link for the future of our trail system will be to connect the clubs on both sides of the Connecticut River by maintaining a crossing of this river. There are currently four bridges within a 10-mile stretch of the Connecticut River that are under consideration for conversion to bike/ped use. SAM and the SAM clubs should consider partnering with the groups involved in this project to assure our sport has a means to “cross the Connecticut”.

By partnering with these groups collectively we will have found new “friends” that we will be able to advocate with on a variety of issues including adding some State lands to our trail system. The future of our sport depends on these new approaches towards building a win-win situation for everyone.

I hope you have all been able to take time to relax and enjoy this past summer season. And, I know we are all “cold weather enthusiasts” who are anxiously anticipating the coming winter season. But first, we find ourselves in the middle of another very important season – THE ELECTION SEASON.

Perhaps at no other time during the entire political process can we, as citizens and voters, have as much impact on the legislature as we can right now. Why is this so? Because the candidates are all in competition for our vote! They are interested in us as voters. They want to hear from us, they want to listen to us and –most of all- they want our help.

There is no better way to have a legislator as a friend than if you help them get elected. How can you help them get elected? If you don’t have a lot of time to give, then you could just offer to put a lawn sign out in your front yard. If you have more time to offer, then you could help man the office phones, hold election signs at busy street intersections, put together mailings or you could stand in front of the local grocery store on Saturday morning and talk to people. If you have just some time to give, then call their campaign office and ask what you can do, and please, know that the candidates will remember any help that you gave to them.

A new way of helping candidates get elected that is growing in popularity is through the use of internet tools. Innovative supporters of candidates are creating and using “Listservs” to help their candidates. Listservs, also called mailing lists, are a way of communicating via email on various topics of interest by joining a particular email discussion group. Listservs is a program whereby emails sent to a mailing list are then forwarded to everyone else on that mailing list. Several major issues arising during town elections and town meetings in Western Mass towns have being won by active users of listservs over those who use the phone. I find this trend very interesting.

OK, so you’ve helped your candidate, now what else should you do? Well, are you registered to vote? It’s a fact that in an average town, such as Goshen for example, only 58% of the population are actually registered to vote. So, if you really want to help your candidate then take a minute and REGISTER TO VOTE at your local town offices. We all have until Wednesday, October 18th to register to vote for the November 7th General State-wide election.

As I said before, this is a great time to discuss your issues and concerns with the candidates. Tell them your ideas and what you’d like to see improved. One topic, that is so important to our sport is funding for our State Park system. This might be one of the topics we could ask them about. Please be respectful. Be brief and be as specific as you can. And please remember, a fun, friendly conversation is remembered long after the unfriendly ones are forgotten.

So if you have some time, give an hour or more to help your candidate. And, let’s not forget to encourage our relatives, friends, neighbors and fellow club members to REGISTER, TO HELP THEIR CANDIDATE and TO VOTE. The dividends during the next two years may be surprising to all of us.