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By: Robert Janis
California Off-Road Vehicle Association Uses
Political Skills, Websites to Push For Goals
CORVA Southern Jamboree |
You might say that a casual visit to a beach
was the spark needed to create the California
Off-Road Vehicle Association (CORVA). The beach
was Pismo Beach, and the visitors were a handful
of off-roaders. The year was 1968. “In 1968 a
handful of off-roaders saw closure on the
horizon,” began Erin Dyer, state secretary of
CORVA and editor/publisher of the association’s
newsletter, “Off-Roaders in Action.” “At Pismo
Beach they decided to protect land access by
forming a statewide organization named the
California Off-Road Vehicle Association. Back
then the location where they were meeting was
called Pismo Beach State Recreation Area. There
were no State Vehicular Recreation Areas (SVRA)
at the time. Now, Pismo Beach is called Oceano
Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area.”
Constructing the nuts and bolts of the
association began in 1969 in the town of Downey,
California, west of Los Angeles. That first
informal meeting became known as the first CORVA
Convention. Interim officers were selected, and
bylaws were written. However, the actual
election of officers took place in the spring of
1970 at Pismo Beach City Hall. Also, the
association filed incorporation papers in 1970.
From the beginning the association has been led
by a “who’s who” of off-road. The first
unofficial president was Gary Funk, and officers
included Bob Ham and Jan Domaigne. The first
elected president was Gayle “Tiny” Stone with
Bob Ham serving as vice president. Ham has since
been inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall
of Fame. The current president of CORVA is Ed
Waldheim who is also an inductee of the Off-Road
Motorsports Hall of Fame as well as the American
Motorcyclist Association Motorcycle Hall of
Fame. He has served in the post for the last 15
years but will be passing the torch this year.
The Mission and Politics
From its inception CORVA has been proactive on
land access issues in the State Legislature of
California as well as the U.S. Congress,
agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, the
United States Forest Service, and with cities’
and counties’ agencies as well as the California
Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Program
(OHMVR). The main purpose is to defend against
any land closures that remove access to trails
and riding areas, explained Dyer. The group has
been successful in influencing California’s
politicians evidenced by the fact that then
California Governor Pete Wilson attended and
spoke at the association’s 25th Annual
Convention. In that speech Wilson referred to
CORVA as an organization “dedicated to
protecting our lands for the people, not from
the people.” “He phrased our mission so
perfectly, we’ve adopted it verbatim,” said
Dyer.
In fact, CORVA, under the direction of Bob Ham,
helped write the original legislation in 1970
that created the California Off-Highway Motor
Vehicle Recreation Division and also, years
later in 1982, helped write the legislation for
the OHMVR commission to oversee the funds raised
as a result of the earlier legislation. The
original legislation allowed funds to be raised
through registration and gas taxes apportioned
to off-road vehicles. “It is known as the ‘Green
Sticker’ program after the green registration
stickers used as license plates on OHVs,” said
Dyer.
Dyer pointed out that CORVA is a volunteer
organization. “We don’t own or rent any
facilities; we have no paid executive staff; we
hire contractors and consultants as needed,” she
said. “This allows us to use the majority of our
funds for land use activities and newsletter
publication to educate and inform the
membership.”
In order to lobby the state in the most
efficient manner CORVA organized the Off-Road
Vehicle Legislative Coalition (ORVLC) which
included various OHV organizations and was
directed by Bob Ham. This wing of CORVA has
since been reconfigured into the California
League of Off-Road Voters (CLORV). The group
includes politically active members of the
American Motorcyclist Association (AMA),
District 36 of AMA, District 37 Competition and
Dual Sport Divisions of the AMA, the American
Sand Association (ASA), the California
Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs (CA4WDC),
the California-Nevada Snowmobile Association
(CNSA), the California Off Road Vehicle
Association (CORVA), The Friends of Oceano Dunes
(FOD), the Off Road Business Association (ORBA),
and the San Diego Off Road Coalition (SDORC),
which collectively has more than 100,000
members. CLORV has its own website at:
www.clorv.org.
Dyer explained that CORVA lobbies at the State
Capitol, OHV Lobby Day, and the California
Republican and Democratic Party Conventions.
However, the members of CORVA do the majority of
the lobbying for the association. “They travel
to Sacramento and Washington, D.C., mostly paid
for out of their own pockets. We hire the
services of one lobbyist in Sacramento and one
in Washington, D.C.” In order to keep costs
manageable, CORVA’s lobbying activity is done in
a collective work manner with other
organizations in partnership. “This allows us to
use our lobbying dollars when the situation most
needs attention,” noted Dyer.
The group influences local city councils and
other decision-making agencies by simply
“getting to know them,” said Dyer. “We visit
their offices for personal meetings. We attend
their public hearings, workshops, and give
testimony in hearings. We get them to see we are
educated, family-oriented people with careers
that just want to go camping with our families.
We are not the dumb, drunken teenagers the media
portrays us to be. We attend economic summits
and get on the agenda to speak about the
economic influence of off-roading. Then, when we
go to future meetings, the officials recognize
us as movers and shakers, and they approach us.
That recognition by an elected official or
agency representative in a large community hall
can help sway others in attendance that we are
an authority figure.”
In addition, CORVA members attend local meetings
of the Bureau of Land Management and the United
States Forest Service. They also provide
testimony for the BLM and USFS and do letter
writing campaigns. “One club, the Santa Barbara
Motorcycle Club, even wrote their own
alternative to a Land Management Plan written by
the U.S. Forest Service,” said Dyer.
Dyer also noted that the association’s northern
regional team of Bruce Witcher and Kyra and Amy
Granat are writing comments on the USFS Route
Designation Planning Process. “The USFS is
‘designating’ trails for closure in 19 forests
in California. CORVA is in the forefront of
involvement to stop this,” she said.
CORVA president Ed Waldheim hosts
regularly scheduled meetings with the
USFS and BLM. |
Dyer added that the association is proactive and
does not wait for things to occur before it
takes action. For example, CORVA president Ed
Waldheim hosts regularly scheduled meetings with
the USFS and BLM. “He doesn’t wait for them to
call him; he sets up the meeting and runs it. He
keeps a list of Action Items and who is
responsible to follow through. He also keeps a
‘Waldheim Budget’ of where the money is being
spent and he keeps a phone log of whom he talks
to and what meetings took place. He then
distributes all this information to the CORVA
officers. We also send members to Washington,
D.C. to meet with the heads of the BLM and USFS
so they can see what’s going on on the ground.”
Dyer also pointed out that members of CORVA wear
CORVA orange colors whenever they go somewhere.
“This even means wearing an orange jacket over
our business suit at the State Capitol or orange
lanyards with our nametags,” she said. “The
orange started as a protest color years ago,
because it stands out in a crowd. When there is
a public hearing for a wilderness bill, the
panel of Congressional members can look out over
the audience and see a sea of orange and know
how many CORVA members are in attendance that
are protesting this action. We also encourage
other organizations to wear orange on OHV lobby
day. You would be amazed at how many
conversations are started in the elevator at the
State Capitol, and we can pleasantly respond to
Staffers or actual legislators. They get to put
a face to an off-roader.”
Dyer likes to tell a story about when she was at
the Burbank Airport heading to a plane to take
her to the OHV Lobby Day, and an assemblyman
named Dario Frommer was on the plane. “Not
knowing him from the back, my husband and I
asked to sit next to him; and he saw our orange
jackets and said, ‘CORVA! Do you know Ed
Waldheim?’ We said, ‘Boy, do we!’ Then other
legislators and staffers on the plane heading
for Sacramento all turned around to see who we
were.”
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