With Lewis County poised to add more miles of public highways to its trails system, it might do the Legislature some good to get its hands on a Consumer Product Safety Commission report that says that while all-terrain-vehicle deaths could continue to drop once the 2011 statistics are fully compiled, the number of those deaths on public highways has reached an all time high.

In fact, of the 327 confirmed ATV deaths in 2011 (not all reporting is complete), 305 of them occurred on public roads, according to the commission. If you’re counting, that means that 93.2 percent of ATV deaths for the last reported year occurred on public highways.

In many cases, this would provide a cautionary statistic for public officials, who might decide to tighten the screws on the use of public roads by ATV riders. In Lewis County, however, this should be sending up phosphorescent flares: the county’s “trail” system is in reality nothing but long stretches of public roads that link sometimes dubious off-road trails. One could only conclude, based on the most recent statistics, that the county has built itself a trail system that is just begging for trouble.

Put aside for a moment (although, frankly, some can’t) that the county has flaunted state law in the creation of its trail system. Consider instead what it has created; it is the interstate system of ATV traildom, with nothing but wide open roads that allow ATV riders to achieve maximum speed. Why, you might wonder, would the private trails appeal to many ATV enthusiasts, when the roads which are legally closed to ATV traffic nearly everywhere else in the state, in Lewis County provide clear-sailing speedways?

That these roads are statistically more dangerous than off-road trails, where natural terrain limits the top speeds of the machines, ought to make Lewis County legislators think twice about the “trail” system they have created. That roads are more deadly than off-road trails is only exacerbated by the legislature’s apparent goal of providing a straight path for ATV riders to every bar, tavern and gin mill in the county. Alcohol and gasoline don’t mix, but you wouldn’t know that in Lewis County.

It’s time for a reconsideration of the Lewis County “trail” system before the death toll there starts to add to the national statistics. There has been a stirring, of late, of some independence on the legislature; it’s time for those who are brave enough to stand up to the ATV lobby to look at their system — really look at it — and take a stand. All they really need to do is make a concerted effort to remove the public roads from the county’s system, leaving actual trails for ATV enthusiasts to enjoy. If they want to take their machine to a bar, they ought to be doing it towed behind their pickup.

It should not have taken Cape Vincent officials long to see that they’d better get their track shoes on if they hope to have any influence on the state’s review of BP’s application for the Cape Vincent Wind Farm.

Under Article X of Public Service Law, an application for any energy production facility bypasses local regulatory bodies and goes before a state siting board, which must shepherd the application through in 12 months. BP was facing a process at the town level that had little to no chance of being reviewed within a year, but with the passage of Article X, it’s like the company was able to jump in a plane to avoid all the traffic on local roads. What the town now fears is that BP will be in first class while the town struggles back in coach seats.

BP is the first company to apply for a project in the north country under the revised state law, and it is too early to say just how this process will go. The siting boards can, but do not have to, bypass local regulations. If it deems them arbitrary, it can overrule them. If, on the other hand, local restrictions are found to be reasonable, the board can incorporate them in the review.

Now, if you believe that is going to happen, I’m pleased to tell you that for a modest sum of money, I can make the Thousand Islands Bridge yours.

Each siting board will have two local members, appointed by the affected municipality at the approval of the governor. This will be the first test of just how much local impact is likely. If Cape Vincent’s choices for the siting board are not accepted, it could be interpreted as a sign that local input is not really desired, thank you very much for asking. In fact, municipalities such as Cape Vincent should appoint the most qualified, knowledgeable people they can find to sit on siting boards. If those nominees are then rejected, it will speak volumes about how the law will be upheld.

The alternative — nominating prowind or antiwind members — will just give the state an excuse to marginalize local input on the siting boards.

It is too early in the process to see whether Article X is just a mechanism to bulldoze energy projects through to approval. To its credit, the Public Service Commission rejected BP’s boilerplate community involvement proposal, sending the company back to create a legitimate plan to inform and involve Cape Vincent residents in the process. That alone isn’t sufficient to suggest the state agency will keep a tight rein on energy companies. The walking disaster that was the Long Island Lighting Co., and the continuing customer service problems of first Niagara Mohawk and now its successor, National Grid, suggest that PSC is not the tightly wound, highly efficient state watchdog we might want it to be. And when you have regulatory bodies that are subject to the whim of political appointment, as siting boards likely will be, objectivity can come into question.

No matter the intangibles, the pace at which BP is moving this application along is sufficient warning to municipalities that to be a part of the process, you cannot drag your heels. Towns like Cape Vincent and Lyme and Clayton and Hammond, all of which have passed laws regulating commercial wind farm operations, will be bypassed and marginalized if their leaders are not ready to run with the big dogs, the companies that want to build these often massive wind projects. Cape Vincent is trying; it has been in touch with PSC with concerns over the public involvement plans and has warned the agency it won’t tolerate the potential conflict of interest from a BP attorney’s spousal relationship with a PSC commissioner. This is good. But towns like Cape Vincent might not have the fire power to maintain local involvement without experienced counsel, and it would be better to have that legal help sooner rather than later.

And Town Councils that will be nominating members of a project siting board should have their nominees in place now, not after a company initiates an Article X review.

In a perfect world, Article X was passed to provide the state with a consistent and cohesive energy approval process, to insulate it both from “anything goes” towns that love the sound of jingling silver and the “not in our backyard” towns that would never approve any project. Somewhere within that framework, however, local voices must be heard. Officials who are well prepared are more likely to have that happen. Those that can’t keep up will be left in the dust.

This week, Lewis County legislators will take up a proposal to raise the local share of the sales tax from 3.75 percent to 4 percent. Diana Legislator Philip Hathway, who will introduce the measure, thinks he has enough votes to pass the increase at the local level. After that, however, Lewis County’s ability to regulate its own fiscal affairs passes into the hands of state Sen. Dean Skelos, a Republican whose district includes Lynn Brook, Long Beach, Rockville Center, East Rockaway and Valley Stream — all on Long Island, all far, far removed from the fiscal travails of small rural counties struggling to get by.

Sen. Skelos, the Senate majority leader, hath proclaimed that the Republican vow of no tax increases (already broken, to a degree, by agreement last year to tax the wealthiest New Yorkers by just a little more than they expected). That extends beyond his true bailiwick, the state Senate, to every taxing jurisdiction that has to ask the state Legislature for permission to raise any tax rates. Doesn’t matter to Sen. Skelos if the county seeking a modest (in Lewis County, 6.7 percent) increase in the local share of the sales tax has determined, based on its own need, that the sales tax is the best way to get revenue. Doesn’t matter to Sen. Skelos if the farmers and manufacturers of a poor rural county like Lewis or St. Lawrence may desperately need some property tax relief. Doesn’t matter to Sen. Skelos that the only way that tourism-oriented counties can tap the pockets of the hundreds of thousands of visitors that come to the county every year is by the sales tax. All Sen. Skelos cares about is his hypocritical political philosophy that taxation is wrong.

I say hypocritical because in Sen. Skelos’s county, the sales tax rate is 8.625 percent (even though 0.375 percent of that goes to the Metropolitan Transit Authority to maintain mass transit, it’s still 0.25 percent higher than the rate being sought by Lewis and St. Lawrence counties). You can bet when Nassau and Suffolk counties go looking for authorization for additional taxation, Sen. Skelos listens with a different pair of ears.

It’s also hypocritical because the party of Sen. Skelos is beating the small-government tub almost to death. I have always assumed that smaller government not only meant less, government, it also meant greater autonomy for lower levels of government, allowing counties and cities to have more say in their own governance. The New York Constitution provides that the state is a home rule state — one in which local decisions are protected, to the greatest extent possible, from state interference. But Sen. Skelos doesn’t seem to care much about that concept.

If Sen. Skelos accompanied his imposition of state rule on local governments with an acceptance that the state should pay for policies and programs handed down from the state level, maybe his adamant stand against allowing counties to raise their share of the sales tax could be swallowed. But as Mr. Hathway will tell you any time you care to listen, the state continues to impose rules on counties but increasingly fails to pay for their enforcement.

And it is here where the hypocrisy begins to trickle down. Local state legislators, whom we may have assumed have some obligation to carry the needs and desires of their constituents to Albany, have pretty much told the north country that their ultimate allegiance is to Sen. Skelos. Sen. Patty Ritchie has allowed her obeisance to Sen. Skelos to keep her from introducing local sales tax rate increases to the Senate even though St. Lawrence County officials have requested it. She has gone so far as to tell the county that it should be able to avoid a sales-tax hike simply by doing a better job with its budget. She has not suggested any ways to do that, of course — after all, when she was county clerk not so long ago, she was intimately familiar with the county’s budget, and I suspect she knows the only place the county has left to cut is in jobs.

And Sen. Joe Griffo has spoken only a tad less harshly, telling the county he might introduce legislation to increase the local share of the sales tax if it holds a referendum that shows the county’s voters are in favor of such a tax hike. Of course, he has shown his fiscal acumen with that, knowing it could cost the county $150,000 in money it really doesn’t have to hold such a vote.

Politicians at every level have to answer to their own voters. If north country voters don’t like what their county legislators are doing, it is no big task to fire them and hire somebody new. Unfortunately, many of the politicians that are making decisions for Northern New York couldn’t find Lowville without a GPS. This leaves the Ritchies and the Griffos to pretend they’re looking out for Joe Voter when what they’re really doing is dancing the Long Island Jig. And it leaves Lewis and St. Lawrence counties facing gaping budget gaps that are at least partially the fault of the very people telling them they can’t make their own fiscal decisions.

There are only 11 of the state’s 62 counties that have a sales tax rate of under 4 percent — and one of those, Westchester County, has a local tax of more than 4 percent in its four biggest cities. Of the 10 where there is a combined sales tax of under 8 percent when coupled with the state’s 4 percent rate, eight of them are north of Albany. This should scream out that it is not, in fact, unreasonable for the north country’s counties to join the rest of the state with 4 percent local tax rates.

But to the Republican hierarchy in the Senate, that scream remains unheard. And to their loyal minions, the Ritchies and the Griffos, party loyalty trumps constituent need every time.

I knew as I passed Salmon Run Mall just before midnight Thursday that my chore wasn’t going to be pleasant, and I cursed my procrastination. “Curses! I’ve procrastinated my way right into retail horror!” I thought to myself.

The mall parking lot, at 11:43 p.m. on a holiday night, was full enough that I could see from Arsenal Street cars parked out to the verge of the parking area. As I cruised past Walmart, that lot was full out to Route 3. The Kohl’s lot, even though the store would not open for another 20 minutes, was likewise full. And the Target parking lot, all four acres of it, was brim full of cars. As was the lot for Old Navy, Michaels, Petco et. al.

Just before midnight on a Thursday night, thousands of people were frantically shopping. Frenetically. Desperately. Wantonly. Pick an excessive adjective, it would apply. In the midst of all this was me, a forgetful (or procrastinating) husband, trying to atone for that irritating trait. All I needed, really, was a Target gift certificate. On a normal day, a 10 minute task.

But when I went into the store, after parking somewhere near the town of Hounsfield line, and tried to get into a checkout line to pick up a gift card off a rack, pay for it and abscond from the madness, I found a tape barrier blocking my way. I stopped and looked. Outside the tape were shoppers pushing and shoving and scuttling and generally trying to find their merchandise. Inside the tape was a line of people who had done that already and were ready to check out. It looked like the line to see Santa Claus in the movie “A Christmas Story,” and I felt like Ralphie and Randy as I gazed toward the end.

If you’ve never been in the Watertown Target, the checkout stations are roughly at the south end of the building. All the way at the north end of the building are the food aisles. The line to check out stretched past the cosmetics, past the cleaning supplies, past the pet food and kitty litter, to the food aisles and then up the food aisles to a point I could not see – perhaps all the way to (gasp!) the automotive section. The line, in other words, was several hundred feet long.

A small sob escaped me. Then I had a burst of pure genius: the service desk. Maybe they had gift cards at the service desk. I slithered and sidled and pushed and walked slowly and got to the service desk where, to my rapture, I was told that yes, I could purchase a gift card there. And I did, and I fled into the still-warm night. The ultimate punishment for my procrastination was nowhere near as bad as I feared.

That is my frightening brush with Black-Friday-on-Thursday madness. And my last, I promise. Some of the things I saw are staying with me. For example, as I was walking to the store from my truck, I saw many, many people carrying only a couple of small bags – no big screen TVs, no staggering piles of heavy merchandise, no carts piled high with presents. Who would tolerate that chaos to buy some mascara, a couple of boxes of Keurig cups and a box of dog treats? Another thing I will never forget is that I did not encounter a single smiling person – and I must have seen several hundred in my brief sojourn. I did see some grown men crying and some mature women shoving other peoples’ carts out of their way. But not a smile.

If it’s such a bad experience that it drains the happy out of everyone who does it, why do it? If it makes you go all feral, why go at all? If everyone just shopped normally from now until the middle of December, the crowds would be normal, and manageable – little busier on nights and weekends, little less crowded on weekdays – and stores could offer perhaps less drastic enticements in the form of sales and the same number of people could still have fabulous (and some not so wonderful) presents on Christmas Day.

I am no Luddite. I love my smartphone and I like posting on Twitter and reading about my friends’ and family’s life on Facebook and I think the Internet has changed society in a good way. But there are still some things about the world of 2012 that I don’t think are as good as the days of, say, 1992. One of those things is the period of greed and avarice colloquially known as Black Friday (now perhaps preceded by Grim Gray Thursday). With the amount of discounting stores have to do to compete, and with the cost of staffing stores on Thanksgiving through the night, through the next day and into Friday night, I can’t believe that this trend is really a positive one for merchants.

If people have decided they will spend a fixed figure for Christmas, and given the limits of cash and credit for much of the population, only so much money is available for holiday spending. The stores are going to get that money whether they sell a $400 television for $249.99 on Black Friday or for $349.99 for, say, the first week in December. People will still give gifts, and spend money, whether they spend it all in 24 outrageous hours on Thanksgiving night and the following day, or spread it over the entire coming month. Who knows – maybe they would spend a little more if their trips were spread over several days.

Watertown’s downtown merchants are sponsoring a more sedate, civil sales event on Saturday. Thankfully, they haven’t succumbed to the merchandising pressure of Black Friday. This idea appeals to me, and I hope these merchants are rewarded for their sanity. It would prove to me the world has not gone entirely mad.

And for all the people I didn’t see Thursday night, because they were home with their families or sound asleep in their beds – thank you!

In the end, the polls were right. In the presidential race, analyses done by a number of independent political watchdogs predicted a very tight popular vote race but a comfortable electoral vote win for Barack Obama; those polls proved to be very accurate.

And in the Bill Owens/Matt Doheny race, the final poll showed a tight race with a likely win for the incumbent. And that, too, was correct.

But the polls are only statistical tools. What matters is the voters. And what they said spoke volumes more than any statistical analysis can ever say.

Nationally, it turned out to be voters from the center who drove the election results. What those centrists saw was the possible end result of turning the country over to ideological purists, especially those on the right. The prospect of actually handing power to ultra-conservatives and tea party activists was obviously not something the centrists could stomach.

And while Mitt Romney, over the course of the campaign, softened and drove to the middle his political philosophy, others in the Republican Party did no such thing. In both Indiana and Missouri, tea party Senate candidates with whacko ideas on social policy handed victory to their more middle-of-the-road Democratic opponents; those victories were key to keeping Democratic control of the Senate. In Maine, voters repudiated both the left and the right, electing independent former Gov. Angus King. And because of the way the national Republican organization savaged him during the campaign, pouring millions of dollars into a failed effort to defeat him, it is almost certain he will join the Senate’s Democratic Caucus.

The Democrats, Republican hyperbole not withstanding, have not fielded a liberal candidate for president since Michael Dukakis. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are firmly centrist politicians, as were Al Gore and John Kerry. This goes back 20 years, and half of those moderate Democrats served or will serve two terms. In the interim, George Bush, while conservative compared to some, was no right wing radical. Indeed, he started the economic bailout that Obama completed (and for which Obama was accused by some on the right fringe of being a “socialist”).

In the north country, Bill Owens succeeded John McHugh in Congress and neither of them strays far from the center of the political highway, McHugh gained a reputation as a man who could reach across the aisle, even to forming strong bonds with Democratic U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton. Owens, likewise, has frequently voted against the Democratic party line in the House, and prides himself on his ability to work the capitalist economic mantra to gain jobs.

And now that position has — finally — gained him an untainted-by-third-party-candidates victory over Matt Doheny. Owens won in a three way race twice, once against Dede Scozzafava and Doug Hoffman, once against Doheny and Hoffman. It appears the Republicans thought all they needed to do was unify the party to defeat Owens, but they were wrong. In a straight-up contest this time, Owens won again.

There is plenty here for the Republican Party to think about. Doheny preached the right-of-center party line: small government, unfettered capitalism, tax breaks will set us free. That philosophy didn’t catch fire in the north country, and it obviously didn’t catch fire across the nation.

Clearly, if the Republican Party wishes to be more competitive, it needs to reconsider positions it has taken that have strayed farther and farther from the center. Many people seem to understand that no matter how galling government can be, we need it. And no matter how much it can pinch to pay taxes, that is simply the cost of having roads and armies and police and schools and a modest social safety net and a clean environment and a hedge against unfettered greed in the corporate world. We all, deep down, want most or all of that.

And because we do, Barack Obama is returning to the White House, the U.S. Senate remains firmly in Democratic control and Bill Owens is keeping his seat in the House of Representatives. There is a lesson there, if anyone is listening.

Sometime soon, the Jefferson County Legislature will vote on a law that would allow them to seize cash and personal property from people charged with misdemeanor drug and gun charges. They should be ashamed of themselves.

The idea arose from a discussion of the synthetic drug craze that recently hit the county. Because these toxic and potent yet not entirely illegal drugs seldom if ever result in felony charges against those found in possession of them, the theory went, a property seizure statute that applies to misdemeanors would add some incentive to leave these synthetic drugs alone. While not a particularly potent argument, and one that cannot on its surface be shown to be true, at least it isn’t hypocritical.

The hypocritical part kicks in when the legislators let slip their real reason for this law: they are drooling over the prospect of seizing property and cash to toss into their budget mix. Sort of a money for nothing and the cars are free plan.

Legislator Scott Gray has enthusiastically endorsed the idea, and he has made no bones about his approval of the economic aspects of the proposal. Others have jumped aboard, and the only thing that stands in the way of this Lilliputian juggernaut are Mike Behling and maybe Phil Reed, the two legislators who have expressed opposition to this plan.

Right now, police can seize personal property for a number of felony charges. Taking away the smoked-glass BMW of a midlevel drug dealer is not a penalty many people would ever lose any sleep over. (But it still might not pass the equality test.)

With the new law in place, you could be taking away the family SUV of a college student who has borrowed Mom’s car for a night.

Or the tractor-trailer of an independent operator who inadvertently gets caught at Fort Drum’s gate with a licensed pistol that just doesn’t happen to be licensed in this state.

Or the otherwise vital cash of a teenager who just got paid for a minimum wage job with money that is supposed to go for tuition and books, or groceries, or off campus housing.

Let’s face it — misdemeanor crime is a piddling deal. If it wasn’t, it would be a felony. If the Jefferson County Legislature wants to go after synthetic drugs, it should put some real pressure on the state to outlaw those substances. Then, when it is a crime to possess bath salts the same way it’s a crime to have heroin, the felony level gets triggered and all bets are off.

Here’s who will be hurt with a misdemeanor seizure law: young fools who haven’t learned any better; poor people with no political “juice” simply because they are poor; families who are connected to the “crime” in only the most peripheral ways; and working stiffs who commit minor gun violations. These are not folks who should be targeted for exceptional punishment, and seizure of property is exceptional.

Mr. Gray has blithely assured everyone there are plenty of “safeguards” in place to prevent abuse of this discretionary punishment. That it is discretionary is reason enough not to trust it, because when the application of a law is subjective, rather than objective, society has a problem. That it is being applied to misdemeanors is even more reason to reject it. We have tiers of crimes because it is recognized that some crimes are worse then others and deserve greater punishment than others. When you apply a heretofore felonious application to a lesser crime without elevating the overall status of that crime, you are putting our justice system out of whack. And frankly, a county legislature should never be trusted to make judgments on our justice system.

As for the many “safeguards” the legislature is touting, while it is true that judges will review prosecutorial decisions to seize property, who reviews prosecutorial decisions not to seize property? This speaks to the heart of the randomness and subjectivity of the law — Cindy Intschert and her successors will be making arbitrary decisions on what to seize, what to leave alone. It would be bad enough if the decision is based on the egregiousness of the misdemeanor. It will be unconscionable if it comes down to whether the vehicle is a new Cadillac Escalade, or a six-year-old Kia Soul.

Finally, we should all find the avarice of our legislators appalling. Seizing personal property as a function of making budget goals is not democratic. It smacks of the lowest kind of official greed. And no matter what the legislators say now, it won’t be evenly applied because it cannot be evenly applied. Every decisions will be in some measure arbitrary and capricious.

This is a bad idea being rushed through the system. The Legislature needs to step back, calm down and think this one through. No matter how much lipstick you put on this proposal, it’s still gonna be a pig.

The first independent poll for the new 21st Congressional District race was issued this week and you could hear the slap across the sprawling district: Matt Doheny, the Republican golden boy whose anointed path to the House of Representatives has been thwarted through no fault of his own, is down by 13 points with 53 days til the election. His strongest reaction to the news: yes, but Bill Owens didn’t poll 50 percent.

Which is true: he polled 49 percent. So take that, Mr. Owens!

This congressional district has been something of an anomaly ever since Republican John M. McHugh vacated the seat when he was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Barack Obama. Bill Owens stepped in to win the special election after the Republicans split their votes between Dede Scozzafava and Doug Hoffman, then won the regular election over Mr. Doheny in another fractured three-way race. So Matt Doheny can’t relinquish the bromide that this is a Republican district and a Republican should be elected.

But apparently, this district has ideas of its own. In the confidence department, the likely voters who responded to the poll expressed greater confidence in Mr. Owens than in Mr. Doheny. And there is no home-field advantage for Mr. Doheny: in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties, the incumbent led 60 percent to 32 percent. This is Mr. Doheny’s “home” area — although I say that with advisement. And people like Mr. Owens better. In fact, 37 percent of Republicans had a favorable opinion of the Democrat, and 51 percent overall said they like the man. Mr. Doheny’s favorable ranking captured just 32 percent overall. So a higher percentage of Republicans like Mr. Owens than voters overall like his opponent. This cannot bode well for the challenger.

What are the greatest negatives for Mr. Doheny? There seems to be a certain view of him as a frat boy — his photographed escapade in Washington with a woman or women not his fiancee, whether fairly represented or not, probably left a sour taste in some people’s mouths. And I think there is a contingent of voters who view him as something of a carpetbagger; while he boasts of his financial triumphs while working on Wall Street and suggests they somehow qualify him for Congress, a lot of people look at that as “Uh-oh, here comes that high-falutin’ city boy!”

And finally, as a colleague suggested to me when we were talking about just how long Mr. Doheny has been running for this position, he has become the Harold Stassen of the north country, always seeking office with an indefatigable ardor that must be wearying for him, because it’s sure making a lot of us voters tired of it. Familiarity oft does breed contempt — or at least some lesser negative feeling.

It’s still a while until the election, and Matt Doheny can still prevail. But the first poll makes one wonder just how he’s going to pull this rabbit out of the hat. Mr. Owens, in his three years in Washington, has learned the power of the incumbency and he at last is wielding it well. It’s going to take an unfathomable misstep on Owens’s part to fritter away his lead, and that means that Mr. Doheny can’t sit back and wait for it, he has to go out and turn voters’ views around. Just how he can do that is a question I can’t get my arms around, and I don’t think his campaign can, either.

In what can only be described as a victory for sanity, the Lewis County Legislature on Tuesday rejected the most recent effort to add to the county’s all-terrain-vehicle road system.

Five legislators finally agreed that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result, and voted against adding more ATV “trail” connections to Lewis County bars, taverns and convenience stores. They did this because every challenge to their unusual system of connecting long stretches of public highway to laughably minuscule segments of off-road trails has been upheld by the courts.

A group of legislators finally decided enough is enough, at least as far as losing lawsuits goes. Admittedly, half of the Legislature continues to think that breaking state law is just fine as long as someone comes up with an economic justification to do so. But it’s hard to defend lining the pockets of a small group of business owners at the expense of conducting public business in a lawful way.

If you look at the beneficiaries of the failed effort to expand the county’s road network open to ATV traffic, you find only bars, restaurants and a convenience store. To achieve this, the plan called for convoluted combinations of private “trails” — some only 500 feet long and adjacent to a highway — and public road openings. In one case, the plan called for creating a “trail” by linking a public highway to a public highway, which was NEVER going to withstand a legal challenge.

The ATV crowd, including half the Legislature and trails coordinator Bob Diehl, don’t get why the Gang of Five voted their latest nonsense down. This is because they don’t understand that no public body should be making policy contrary to state law simply because they want to.

A video shot during the county’s most recent Snirt Run that was posted on YouTube seems to embody the thinking of the pro-trail legislators. In it, some young hotshot riders are shown wilfully breaking the law by skirting around barricades to go onto posted land, going off trail and tearing through, presumably, someone’s private woodlot and finding mud holes off trail in which to play. The object of the video turns to the camera and says “It ain’t illegal if they don’t catch you!”

This seems to be the byword of Mr. Diehl, Legislator Richard Lucas and Legislature Chairman Jack Bush. Their determination that whatever they think they want to do is OK puts one in mind of a spoiled youngster who has never been told “No!”

In fact, in an interview on TV-7 News, Mr. Bush told the reporter “We can fix this.”

Jack, nothing is broken. Your misguided effort to open more public highways to ATV traffic failed on a legitimate vote of the Legislature. You lost, but that doesn’t mean that something has to be repaired with this proposal.

If the Legislature wants to “fix” something, they should start with the basic premise of the trail system: it should not be long stretches of public highway artfully linked by tiny segments of private-land trails. If all the effort that has been put into coming up with sneaky ways to add to the ATV road system were instead put into an effort to develop significant and enjoyable off-road trail networks, everyone would benefit.

As it is now, only the lawyers and bar owners really make out. So the Gang of Five did a good thing this week, and for the good of the county, they should stand their ground and force the changes that will result in a legitimate — and legal — ATV trail system.