Yesterday I received a form email from Kate Dixon, the Executive director of the NC Friends of the Mountains to Sea Trail, or FMST. The jist of the email was that due to budget constraints, the NC Senate had voted to remove AAT funding from the state budget. In the NC House, AAT funding had been retained at it's current year level of $108,000. As the NC House and Senate go into discussion to make their two budgets match, complete defunding of the Adopt A Trail program is not only a possibility but a likelihood.
Kate Dixon "
The biggest problem we face in saving Adopt-A-Trail is that legislators don't know about it. That's why it is so important for you to contact your legislators to let them know what it has done in your community and on trails you love.
If we lose all funding for the program, it will be much harder to resurrect it in the future. If you haven't contacted your legislator before, this really is the time to do it. If you contacted them a couple of weeks ago -- please do it again. They are so busy that they will probably have forgotten your note, and they will appreciate the reminder about a program they know little or nothing about."
