From the Pahrump Valley Times: The Southern Nevada Off Road Enthusiasts SNORE canceled an off-road
race scheduled to take place in Nye County the last weekend of October
due to the high cost charged by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
But
off-road enthusiasts who worry such events may soon go by the wayside,
can take solace knowing other events like the Vegas to Reno race
continue.
“We attract the grass roots racers. We like to keep our
entry fees low. We’re not in a position to pay extremely high BLM
costs,” SNORE President Brittany Burgos said.
The BLM wanted to
charge SNORE a cost recovery estimate of $47,000 for the SNORE Pahrump
Nugget 250, more than their previous costliest race, the Mint 400, she
said.....
Mark Sanchez, an outdoor recreation planner with the BLM Pahrump
Field Office, said costs vary specifically with each off-road event;
this was a new course that had to be surveyed. In this case there was
about $5,000 in additional costs from 60 hours more of work to get
through the environmental process.
“It’s expensive out there to
run an event. That’s the bottom line. There’s a lot of interests out
there. Everybody wants to be taken care of. Power line roads need to be
graded,” Sanchez said. “We have to restore county roads, work with the
county to get those roads restored to previous event conditions, but
also preventing the public from the high speed vehicles on the race
course. That ties back into law enforcement presence being out there.
Some of the costs in the past have been because we’ve had something like
nine road crossings, so NDOT requires an encroachment permit, then they
have their requirements.” http://pvtimes.com/news/high-blm-costs-blamed-in-cancellation-of-off-road-event/
I have no problem with the costs directly related to the event, but then there's this:
The National Business Center, which is a bank that handles payments for
the BLM, increased its fees to process this from 17 percent to 18.4
percent, he said.
So, 18.4% of the fees goes to the U.S. bank, the National Business Center, a bureaucratic agency that has nothing to do with putting on the race?
No wonder things are so screwed up in the Federal Government.
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