U.S. attorney freezes forest fee prosecutions
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
The U.S. Attorney in Boise is asking the Forest Service to review its
controversial user fee program on the Payette National Forest and Sawtooth National
Recreation Area (SNRA).
Meanwhile, she told the Idaho Mountain Express, her office will
freeze prosecuting fee violations.
"The program is well-intentioned in principle but problematic in
application," U.S. Attorney Betty Richardson said.
The remarks of Richardson, the U.S. attorney for the Justice
Departments Idaho district, were made in a Sunday statement and in a Tuesday
telephone interview.
"As its set up now, the program relies on the federal
criminal justice system to enforce what are essentially parking tickets," she said.
"In most instances, thats an unwise use of taxpayer money, which is badly
needed to fight more serious problems like fraud, drug smuggling and violent crime."
In her telephone interview she added, "I am not interested in
pursuing any of these cases until the Forest Service figures out how it wants to handle
these cases. I think the Forest Service needs to consider how best to enforce the
program."
There are 22 pending cases that the U.S. Attorneys office will
not consider until some sort of resolution can be reached, Richardson said.
The Forest Service and U.S. Attorney officials were scheduled to meet
on the issue today in Boise in an attempt to reach resolution.
Contrary to what has been reported, charges against violators were
dismissed for a variety of reasons, not solely because they were against out of state
persons, Richards said.
In fact, she said, considerably more Idahoans than non-residents have
had their charges dismissed, and many cases were dismissed simply because the violator
wrote a letter.
Richardson also noted that the vast majority of violators, Idahoans and
non-residents alike, paid the required fee, either initially or after a ticket was issued.
Out of 140 cases that went as far as the U.S. Attorneys office in
Boise, 80 have been dismissed, according to Sawtooth National Forest Spokesman Ed
Waldapfel. Fifteen of those involved out-of-state violators.
Many were dismissed because violators either purchased a pass or were
not able to be found, he said.
"We need to take a common sense approach," Richardson said.
"We ask the Forest Service to work closely with our office and with resources users
to design a program thats workable, cost-effective and fair."
Waldapfel said the Sawtooth National Forest still does not anticipate
any changes to the current user fee system, but added that "we obviously need to
resolve the current issue."