JoeH wrote:
Dennis Henderson wrote:
plasticmaster wrote:
... I believe his presentation is a little misguided though because I've observed every summer over the last 14 years at Bahia Honda at least 80 to 90% of the campers being from Florida.
https://www.flsenate.gov/media/videoplayer?EventID=1_ky7xx6qg-202301171330&Redirect=true
Thank you for the link. I agree that the majority of SUMMER campers are from Florida. No one else from up north in their right mind would want to come to camp in HOT Florida in the summer.
The reverse is true, however, for the great weather months of October, November, December, January, February and March. Out-of-staters and Canadians are in the majority.
Most other state parks around the country and many county parks give residents an advantage over non-residents. We are hoping for that to happen here with our Florida State Parks and our residents.
Denny and Cindy Henderson
I agree... in 2010 I did a study of park occupancy during the snowbird season in south Florida ( e.g. Collier Seminole,Pennekamp,Long Key, Bahia Honda,Curry Hammock ) and the vast majority of sites were occupied by out of state residents. For example at Collier Seminole, on many of the days, over 90% were non-residents. This data was captured by site visits and from Reserve America reports. The results were presented to the then Director of State Parks, Don Forgione and staff. They then undertook a study and reviews confirming my findings. Due to political considerations, it never moved much forward other than continued discussions. I also pointed out that several counties in Florida offer preference in reservations to their county residents and that 18 other states offer some type of preference to their residents.
It's about time Florida did the same. Residents pay for the parks via taxes and should be able to use them. There are plenty of commercial campgrounds to accommodate visitors from other states.
To put it in perspective, there are only 3600 campsites in the state park system, that people are trying to reserve and there are well over 100,000 commercial campsites that those visitors can use.
I'm from SC and vacation at Bahia Honda State Park in the Keys for a week or two each summer. Show me a private campground that offers anything close to what Bahia Honda offers especially at similar price. This bill will eliminate folks like me from ever visiting these wonderful parks again due to the competitive nature of acquiring a campsite.
