Theft of Government Property

House Bill 1434 (Public Act 94-134) creates a higher penalty for the theft of governmental property. The statute defines governmental property as "funds or other property owned by the State, a unit of local government, or a school district." Depending on the value of the property stolen, offenders may be charged with a Class A misdemeanor up through a Class 1 non-probational felony.

Personal Protection for Government Employees

House Bill 1588 (Public Act 94-333) provides that a person commits the crime of aggravated battery if the person committing the battery knows that the victim is an employee of a political subdivision engaged in the performance of his or her authorised duties at the time the battery takes place.

For more information on these bills and other park district, forest preserve, conservation and recreation agency legislation, please contact Peter Murphy, IAPD General Counsel, at 217/523-4554 or pmurphy@ilparks.org.

Advocacy Tips

The Congressional Management Foundation (see www.cmfweb.org) recently issued a report titled Communicating with Congress, which looks at how congressional offices deal with the influx of messages on Capitol Hill.

One finding is that "personalized or individualized messages to Congress have more influence on Members' decision-making process than do identical form messages. Only 3% of staff surveyed say identical form postal mail would have a lot' of influence on their Member of Congress if he/she had not reached a decision. In contrast, 44% report individualized postal letters would have 'a lot' of influence."

The key points:

•  Quality is more persuasive than quantity.
•  There is a difference between being noticed and having an impact.

Findings also revealed that:

•  Congress received four times more communications in 2004 than in 1995. The increase comes from Internet-based communications. Congress received 200,388,993 communications in 2004. The House received 10,400,000 communications by post and 99,053,399 via the Internet. The Senate received 7,935,594 by post and 83,000,000 via the Internet. During this decade, the staffing levels of members' personal offices have not changed.
•  Half of congressional staff surveyed believes identical form communications are not sent with constituents' knowledge or consent. Another 25 percent are unsure about the legitimacy of these communications. Additionally, 89 percent would like the ability to differentiate form communications generated from membership lists from those sent through direct constituent action.

Referendum News Now on the Web

Frequent readers of this column know that I include election information featuring the success or failure of park district referenda throughout the state after each election cycle. This information is helpful to those agencies seeking to craft referenda for their communities. To avoid having you dig through past issues of the magazine, the IAPD Web site now features historical information on park and recreation referenda from the most current and past years. Look for it at www.ILparks.org on the Public Policy page under Referenda Results.

National Front Transportation Re-Authorization

SAFETEA-LU, the Safe, Accountable, Efficient Transportation Equity Act — a Legacy for Users, is the bill that authorizes spending for a six-year re-authorization of the nation's surface transportation program. In SAFETEA-LU, park and recreation-related spending categories have been increased by hundreds of millions of dollars above the last authorization, and long-standing statutory protections for historic sites, park and recreation areas, wildlife refuges, and waterfowl areas known in the law as Section 4 (f) have been preserved.

Highlights include: approximately $3.5 billion for transportation enhancements; $370 million for the Recreational Trails Program (an increase of 62 percent over funding levels in TEA 21); full funding for the Sports Fishing and Boating Safety Education Act, at nearly $ 100 million per year; increases for the Scenic Byways, Federal Lands Highways Program, and the Congestion Mitigation Air Quality Program (CMAQ) (a program that contains funding for bike-ped transportation corridors); as well as a number of new programs that may hold opportunities for park and recreation agencies and local communities, such as the Safe Routes to School Program (SR2S) funded at $61 2 million; a non-motorized pilot demonstration program for four selected cities at $25 million; and the new Transit in the Parks Program for federal agencies.

LWCF

The House and Senate voted by overwhelming margins to pass the Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 2361). The bill includes $30 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) state assistance program. This is a major victory for parks and recreation advocates in light of the president's recommendation to terminate the program in his proposed budget for 2006. The bill also includes $115 million for the federal side of LWCF, a $101 million decrease from fiscal year 2005.