(Note from RT: It is the same story in Arizona. AZ Game and Fish is just a big arm of USFWS -- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Do you know what your state's game and fish is doing?)

May 26, 2003

By Dale Anderson

daleanderson@ECKSOR.net

Mike Hayden wants more of your money. Talk about waste. Here is the head of a cabinet-level department, already planning how he wants to raise his department's expenses and add personnel.

There is no need for more state employees on the Prairie Spirit Trail bicycle path playground.

There is hardly any use of this white elephant outside of the city limits of towns along the right-of-way.

The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks have spent millions of your tax dollars already ($105,000 per mile for 33 miles).

They would like to spend another $3 million, plus, to develop the boring 'Phase III' money pit from Welda (not even incorporated and run by the County Commission) to Iola, Kansas.

Add to this, nearly $100,000 per year, attempting to maintain this path that is paved with scrap limestone.

There's only one thing to say to Hayden: Just Say NO!

Even though the KDWP wants the public to think so, the PS trail IS NOT even a state park.

Never has been, and according to Kansas Law. Never can be.

They confiscated some of my family's land for this rape of personal property rights. I'll be darned if I want a state park running smack-dab through "the back 40." Or for that matter, "the front 40." Or just "any 40" that I have anything to do with.

These land confiscators should get out, let the land revert to the real owners of the right-of-ways, and leave them alone. Period.

The Mary Mae Hardt mentioned below was one of the worst persons ever in Kansas, concerning property rights.

From my viewpoint, her ideas were (and I guess they still are) purely Socialistic.

She would grab land for a trail in a New York Minute for the "greater good."

Strange that Hayden would mention her. Maybe he likes her idealism goals?

Read on!

Hayden Supports Trails

In a keynote address to the membership of the Kansas Horseman Foundation on October 27, Secretary of Wildlife and Parks Mike Hayden stated that his department supports the development of more trails in Kansas. The main problem, though, is funding.

He expects two cuts in the parks division next year due to the continuing state budget crisis brought on by the poor economy and tax cuts in the 1990s.

Hayden remarked that Kansas has a meager park system and Kansans only spend 50 cents per person, per year, on parks. Kansas ranks last in the percentage of land in public ownership. Missouri, a smaller state, has five times the amount of public land. It also has a dedicated funding source for parks and conservation. According to the secretary, the Kansas legislature is more conservative than the voters on this issue. However, the new census shows that 71% of Kansans now live in urban areas and with reapportionment, more trails/public land supporters may be elected to the legislature.

The former governor told the audience he thinks that funding is cyclical and funding for completion of the Prairie Spirit Trail will eventually come through. He won't ask for another employee (much needed) to help maintain the Prairie Spirit Trail until FY 2005 but he will consider reclassifying a position to appoint a state trails coordinator. After Mary Mae Hardt left Kansas in the mid-1990s, Kansas has been without a state trails coordinator.

Hayden mentioned that trails advocates should meet with the Natural Resources Legacy Alliance which was created by the legislature. Tracy Streeter with the Kansas Conservation Commission is the staff person for the Alliance.