Illinois park fees

[jonny5buck]

Illinois is most of the way thru imposing a ''park user fee''..for some of the state parks...Wisconsin and some of the surrounding states already do this ,and i for one have not really had an issue paying 8 bucks to enter and enjoy the parks i have visited..

Let's cut to the chase...this is Illinois and hear are my feelings on what will happen...

Illinois park FEES...will be higher than Wisconsins and all others right out of the gate....than they will be hiked up to ridiculous amounts by the following yr.. or 2 yrs afterwards....tourism will drop even further......

The money gathered from these park fees will NOT be used strictly for the parks and Maintenance...instead politics wins out AGain in Illinois..... and the monies will be defered to IDOT ...or other state agencies ...further depleting Dept. of Natural Resources and causing parks to close just like ol Rod Blago. was going to do.

And #3--Illinois will implement hunting fees and daily use permits per site and start charging money to fish on site and hunt on site...next maybe they will charge a fee to look at a lake or a 2 dollar fee to gaze at the sky- ...oh ya i went there...

One thing you can count on in this state is that the elected officials will mis handle OUR tax money and will somehow pass the fees and burden to us regular folks all the while taking a jet trip to Springfield in a jet and jet fuel paid for by us overtaxed already common folks...

Get ready,,,it's gonna be a bumpy ride

[Deebz]

I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to use the parks if it really is applied to the actual costs of maintaining them. I know a county park near me requires you to buy a boat sticker to launch a boat on its lake. This is fine by me though, because it ensures that I'll have a place to launch a boat when I want to fish that lake.

I do worry about our IL politics taking over though. You're spot on with how our money gets mishandled though Jon... We saw it with our sate Lottery that was supposed to fund education... We're seeing the effects right now as the state is trying to get out of funding the pensions of their public workers (they haven't actually been paying what they're supposed to have been paying into things like TRS for years, and now they're saying the teachers need to pony up and cover the cost of their unpaid bills...)

[jonny5buck]

Agreed @ deebz.....i think the consensus is that most people would not have a problem paying a a small fee for some of the park usages...esp. at the Larger state parks....The problem is that if that money is NOT guaranteed to stay put in Dept. of Natural Resources hands ...it will be mis-handled and serve no purpose...except to line the pockets of politicians and their ''special interest groups''.

The proposed fees i seen were already 2-3 dollars MORE than neighboring Wisconsin...and thats just to get them started...Illinois has a long history of corruption and mis-management of tax dollars.....Im afraid that it will be the tip of the ''iceberg''...and we will be riding the ''titanic'' and the elected officials will be telling us '''Don't worry''...''It's an UNSINKABLE SHIP''.....

If DNR was in complete control of the fees and collecting and distributing the funds within the park system i could sleep well...

The way it is right now throw me a life vest....please...

[buckwild]

"toll free in '73" - ya right