Your chance to unload on the Water Use Sticker system:
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheIllinoisPaddlingC/da63809acf/91c358f495/e72859b951
A short survey being done by the Illinois Paddling Council in conjunction with the IDNR.
I am curious to know how compliance with the WUS system is going. Upstate vs. downstate? I see most of the bennies from this tax going to Chicago area and northern IL paddlers and not so much to us downstate, every man for himself social collectivists. But I may be wrong. Curmudgeonly wrong. (my fleet still has not one WUS)
Doesn’t work for me
The survey, I mean, not the link.
I saw this thing a little while ago and was tempted to complete it, but find it poorly constructed. I can’t answer questions comparing the WUS to the prior registration system or how easy or difficult it was to obtain the WUS, because I didn’t use the old registration system, and I haven’t tried to obtain a WUS.
My sentiments can be summed up by saying “the WUS is one more reason for me not to come to Illinois to paddle.”
I submitted mine.
My main complaints:
- cost more per year than previous system.
- have to give SS# to strangers whom I don’t know are trustworthy.
- may not last a full year, depending on issue date.
- have to renew each boat every year, rather than every three years.
- have to carry paperwork in wallet, in addition to having the stickers on the boat.
- must be transacted in person, rather than online or by mail.
Those are my main gripes about the new system. I preferred the old method, but this system could be tweaked to be better.
Inquiring mind wants to know?
– Last Updated: Dec-23-13 10:00 AM EST –
What is the necessity of obtaining a paddler's SS number to register a canoe or kayak?
Only reason I can think of is to generate information/data about you. Why is anything but your name & address necessary?
All boat registration schemes are bogus, revenue generators, used to replace money ill spent by bureaucrats.
BOB
Uh Huh
Yeah, I wasn’t able to check most boxes since I had not WUSed any boats but I was able to diatribe in the “other” spaces.
“the WUS is one more reason for me not to come to Illinois to paddle.” TO: the WUS is one more reason for me to leave Illinois to paddle
but I still love my local creek which for me is so out there that it ain’t even in Illinois 'specially when I gots me a little bit a Jebus in da bottle. I lubs me dat creek Jebus. Actually it is in 8 oz. stainless so I is polecatily co wrecked. I river dorks alone. And there mi amigos is your christmas gift. Man I hope you laughed at that mess.
Acronym Jungle on SSN and WUS = POS
From Chicago Whitewater website: “The DNR has determined that purchasing a WUS falls within the scope of Federal and State law that require providing a SSN for purchase of a license – so as to help track down deadbeat parents behind on child support payments. One must therefore provide either a SSN or a DNR customer number to the POS vendor in order to purchase a WUS. If you are reluctant to provide your SSN to the POS vendor, a DNR customer number can be obtained by telephone from the DNR before visiting a POS vendor to buy a WUS.”
Thanks
for submitting. You had most of the arguments right but that won’t make it right. Tweak a smily face on it and it will all be perfect.
I’m confident I can poach a run anytime
I’m in Illinois. I’ve paddled in over 40 of the lower 48 states, most in the last 20 years, and encounters with enforcement officers has been extremely rare. Plus, it’s easy to guess where enforcement people are likely to be present.
Why not an out-of-state paddler license? Like the OTS licenses for fishing and hunting? Why treat a canoe like a car? I don’t say that Illinois law is worse than Georgia law. They’re about equally bad. But Illinois law tends to be more OCD and petty.
"Poach a run"
I like that! A true raconteur de camoflaguer. Dang if I ain’t a creek poacher too!
“where enforcement people are likely to be present”
ugh, where some bum *%&@ poor folk’s hangin’ a worm and needin’ to have their shishin’ lisins chekted an 5 gallun pale countered
I’ll check into that DNR customer #
Thanks for that tip.
SS #s
Social Security numbers have been necessary to register a boat in Illinois going back to about 2002. The state was using the information as a cross-check against parents who were behind in child support payments, making sure that someone who wasn’t making their payments wasn’t buying boats with the money instead.
Most of the shops I know of (and certainly the one I work for) filled out the forms, but left the SS # blank, telling the customer to fill that out on their own and mail it to the state, after we’d taken our copy of the form out, since we didn’t want that info anywhere on our premises.
However, giving that info to a kid working behind the cash register at Walmart…um. Nope. No thank you.
Cross checking…
– Last Updated: Dec-23-13 11:44 PM EST –
How many guys who can't/won't make their child support payments are buying canoes, or kayaks?
That is a testament to the stupidity of the bureaucrat, or politician who dreamed up that child support enforcement technique.
Bogus!
BOB
They have such resentment against
welfare for welfare mothers that they lose sight of whether efforts to run down fathers for child support are cost effective. But I’m sure there are some deadbeat fathers who paddle. It’s part of the bitter conflict left from a split-up.
Simple fix
An outdoor recreation stamp that applies universally for anyone recreating in the outdoors whether that be boating, hiking, bird watching, or any activity outside of hunting and fishing that are already covered. One stamp purchable online. One side benefit would be to stop the whining from some of the hook and bullet folk that they are covering most of conservation costs.
ALL boats registrations included it
– Last Updated: Dec-25-13 3:56 PM EST –
Canoes and kayaks used the same registration form as 40 foot Carvers. It wasn't about targeting canoeists. Canoeists, as the industry joke goes, are people who find their new shoes in the river.
Guys buying $300k cruisers, on the other hand, are among the MOST likely to be skirting their child support payments, as former Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh demonstrates.
That might work !
But what about all the jobs lost from processing just one stamp instead of 28?