Campers in County Parks Must Show Identification

In an effort to improve security at some county regional parks, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday adopted a law requiring adults seeking overnight camping permits to show valid identification, such as a driver’s license.

The ordinance, adopted 5 to 0, applies to Featherly Regional Park in Anaheim, O’Neill Regional Park in Trabuco Canyon and the Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park near San Juan Capistrano. The law also extends the maximum period that someone may be banned from a regional park from 60 days to 1 year. However, those evicted still have the right to appeal, county officials said.

In Case of Emergency

Currently, no identification is necessary to secure an overnight camping permit. The new county ordinance requires at least one adult in a group to show valid identification so if there is an emergency or trouble, park officials can locate the individual, according to Tim Miller, operations manager for the county’s regional parks.

“Our aim is to make the parks more secure and get more identification on those using the parks,” Miller said.

As the county’s homeless rate has steadily increased in recent years, the number of people using the regional parks overnight has swelled. Enforcement of park regulations, particularly the $10-per-night camping fee, has become difficult at times, Miller said, because officials do not have enough identification on visitors.

Twice this year, Miller said, rangers have confronted people who had not paid.

“The people claimed they didn’t have the money and then split,” Miller said. “In those cases, all we have is their names. For all we know, they might have made those names up. Without a driver’s license, how do we track them down?”

But Miller said the ordinance is not aimed at discouraging homeless people from using the parks.

He recalled that in January, the lack of proper identification made it difficult to identify one camper, a middle-aged man who was found dead of natural causes near his campsite at Featherly Regional Park.

Attempts to identify the victim and notify his family took nearly 2 weeks, in part, because the only lead that authorities had was the man’s signature on a camping permit, Miller said. The man lived out of his car, and investigators found no current identification when they searched his belongings.

The new park regulations requiring a driver’s license is similar to regulations in place at state and national parks, Miller noted.