WINTER, PALUCKI & BURKHARDT - Southern California Fee Demo
"Overall the vast majority of statements gathered at the (S. Cal) focus groups were negative."
"For many of the participants, the fee for use of public lands was an additional tax." ... "Volunteers did not perceive fees to be fair, since they had already made a contribution to the maintenance of natural resources."
LAPAGE (This quote is from an earlier 1994 study)
"The level of vision which created these public lands deserves to be matched by funding sources which assure their benefits now and in the future. And, those funding sources must be protected from raids with a tenacity equal to the protection of the lands themselves."
MORE - A Functionalist Approach
"We have generally believed that participation in outdoor recreation activities is desirable and should be encouraged. User fees clearly militate against this." ... "lower-income people may well be underrepresented in "customer" surveys not because they have been excluded but because they have reduced their participation."
"...rationing by fees can be tantamount to rationing by class."
"...public purposes can become masked by agency goals and the question becomes: 'How well is the agency doing?' rather than 'How well is the public function being served?' This masking is exacerbated by the current use of business metaphors like 'customer satisfaction', which push public agencies toward a private-like conception of themselves."
"The lands are managed by the agencies in trust for the public and not for agency benefit. When public lands "are fully priced and able to operate at a profit, generating a return on investment, haven't they essentially lost their public function?"
"The current enthusiasm for fees, then, represents a convergence between libertarian and antigovernment sentiment on the one hand and agency self-interest on the other."
"If legislators turn a collective blind eye, members of the upper classes will not care while working class families will be relatively voiceless. What is the difference between a tax and a fee?...Who is keeping track of public purpose and the public interest?"
"Our public lands are constitutive elements of our national identity. As originally conceived, they were to be special places, available to all, and free from aristocrats exacting tribute. Unfortunately, this vision has eroded over the past 30 years."
"We must constantly remember that it is the people and not the agencies who own the land."
WILLIAMS, VOGT & VITTERSO - Fees at Desolation Wilderness, CA
"the meaning of wilderness itself is challenged by the very notion of charging access fees." ... "The idea of having to pay simply for access to public lands is potentially much more intrusive on American sensibilities about 'their' public lands."
"Some users may have a long history of use of a wilderness area resulting in a sense of entitlement or personal ownership which is not compatible with paying fees...more experienced users were less likely to perceive benefits from fees and therefore were less supportive of fees." ... "they simply do not see a reason for them or a benefit from them."
"Experienced users are less inclined to take a consumer's view of wilderness and associate price with quality." They "are skeptical of the shift from a public perspective that embodies obligations and responsibilities on the part of users to a market or consumer perspective which tends to minimize the sense of stewardship on the part of the user."
RICHER & CHRISTENSON - Fees at Desolation Wilderness, CA.
"In a sense, public lands are shared by the entire population." ... "a case can be made that the costs of protecting and managing these areas should be borne by all, and therefore supported by general tax revenues. In this context, many visitors view recreation fees as an unfair form of double taxation. Related to this is the idea of public lands access as a right afforded everyone regardless of means."
Click here to read excerpts from the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration.