VA State Parks dog fee
I received an email last night from Nancy Heltman with the VA state park system and part of the note said, "I know that many of our campers will be happy to hear that effective Jan. 1 we will no longe...
Forum Discussion
amandasgramma wrote:
!!!!???? So the dog owners no longer have an extra fee, now EVERYONE has to pay extra.........yeah, as a non-dog owner, I'm not sure that's fair!!!!!! We'll add them to OUR "No-Go" list.....
It wasn't about dogs in the first place. My opinion after contacting VASP for an article, the response I received (which you can read via a link in the article), is that it was always about money. In the letter they sent me, Joe Elton, State Parks Director, mentioned all the complaints they received. He even stated that they once thought of not allowing pets at all. But instead, they came up with the fee. So in other words, they thumbed their noses to the complainers and the dog owners. They looked at it as a way to raise revenues. Which to me, sounds fair. We can not expect them to work on the same budget year after year. Things cost more. Staff salaries cost more. Eventually you got to raise the price overall.
