Trabuco Canyon : Cleveland Park Rangers Plan to Get Scofflaws

If you bent the rules the last time you visited Cleveland National Forest, and you haven’t bothered to pay off that little citation you got, a ranger may soon be knocking on your door.

Federal magistrates have issued about 100 arrest warrants for people who have ignored their citations from the Trabuco Ranger District, the 161,633-acre reserve that separates Orange and Riverside counties, according to Galen Young, a U.S. Forest Service resource protection officer.

The offenses include off-road driving in restricted areas, illegal shooting and not paying campground fees, Young said. The original fines are between $25 and $75; most are less than $50.

But now the scofflaws face mandatory court appearances, or bails as high as $300. And officers will be coming after them.

“We’ll be going out in July, August, September . . . probably once a month for the next four or five months,” Young said.

People who may have overlooked their citations should pay them before the rangers knock on their doors, Young advised. “If they pay it off, then they’ll probably just pay it off at the (original) fine amount.” And, he added, they’ll avoid being arrested.