Countywide : Speakers Tell Panel to Shut Parking Lot

The Ventura County Fair’s Parking Commission held a public hearing Wednesday on how to manage the 328-space parking lot the fair owns near Surfer’s Point Park, but most speakers told the commission it shouldn’t manage the lot at all.

The parking lot should be shut down, several environmentalists and longtime surfers said.

Since opening six months ago, the lot has been an immensely popular tourist attraction. Thousands of motorists drive through it every weekend to enjoy the ocean view, fair officials said.

But environmentalists warned that the parking lot, which ends just south of the mouth of the Ventura River, has contributed to the depletion of natural habitat in the estuary, one of the richest bird sanctuaries in Southern California.

“Ecologically, the best solution would be to shut down the parking lot altogether. Period,” said Jack Farrell, an environmental studies instructor at Ventura College.

Farrell and other conservationists found support in a group of old-time surfers, who reminisced about how natural and isolated Surfer’s Point looked in the 1960s--before the fairgrounds and other developments were erected in the area.

Now, the surfers pointed out, what used to be an exclusive point that seldom attracted more than a few dozen surfers has become a magnet for hundreds of them.

“I would like to see the lot closed, so that the people who really want to use the point can walk all the way up there like we used to in the ‘60s,” Mike Marquez said.

In a show of hands, about 25 of the 40 people at the hearing favored closing the parking lot. The commissioners said they would study the proposal before making a recommendation to directors of the 31st District Agricultural Assn., which runs the fairgrounds.