OJAI : Inmate Crew Praised for Creating Road

Ojai Ranger Ron Bassett, forced to lay off his trail crew for lack of a new Forest Service budget, credits an inmate crew from the Ventura County sheriff’s work camp with helping to create a new trailhead in Ojai.

But Bassett said more work needs to be done on the Stewart Canyon access road to the Pratt and Foothill trails before the trailhead is reopened to the public.

A county traffic engineer looked at the road recently to see how it can be widened to remove safety hazards, Bassett said. Based on the engineer’s determination, the U.S. Forest Service and Ventura County Public Works will share the cost and labor of the improvements.

“It won’t be paved, but the safety hazards will be taken care of,” he said. The narrow road west of Foothill Road has a blind curve and steep drop-offs that pose hazards for two-way traffic.

Until the roadwork is completed, the ranger said the gate across Stewart Canyon Road will be closed to the trailhead for the popular hiking and horseback riding paths into Los Padres National Forest.

“It’s a popular trail because of how close it is to Ojai,” he said. “You can access a lot of country from there.”

When the trailhead opens before the end of the year, Bassett said, new signs will point to a parking area with space for six cars and seven pickup trucks with horse trailers.

The ranger district gathered public input last year to determine how the area could be improved after residents complained of trail users illegally parking along Foothill Road.

A seven-man crew of minimum-security inmates from the sheriff’s work camp in Rose Valley began enlarging the parking area last month along with four Forest Service employees.

“They’ve surprised us, how fast it’s gone,” Bassett said. “They’ve been doing an excellent job for us the entire summer.”

The supervised inmates, serving time for misdemeanor crimes such as drunk driving, have cleared brush along roads, put in water lines and pruned a small pine plantation in Rose Valley for the ranger district.

The “free” work force has been particularly valuable this summer, Bassett said, because the Ojai Ranger District had to lay off all its temporary employees, except firefighters, who had been working on trail maintenance.

Bassett said the layoffs are due to a congressional delay in passing a Forest Service budget for the coming fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1.