Countywide : Bike Path Repair May Cost $300,000

Ventura County Fair Director Tony Caezza warned his fellow board members Tuesday that needed repairs to the deteriorated bike path on the fairground’s beach frontage may cost nearly $300,000.

“The ocean is taking the bike path, and it’s going to take the parking lot and the street next,” he said.

The board decided that during the fair it would close the 150-foot-long, 17-foot-wide strip of bike path, which fair Assistant Manager Art Amelio said fell into the ocean after the March flooding. The fair will run from Aug. 19 to 30.

Until now, the fair board has allowed bicyclists to cut through the empty parking lot. When the fair starts, those parking spaces will be needed.

“We’re going to have a dangerous mix of vehicle and bike and pedestrian traffic,” Amelio said.

Caezza, who heads the board’s building and grounds committee, said he wanted to make the board aware of the eventual cost of the repair. Caezza said Ventura would like to help pay for the repairs, but has no money to spend right now.

Fair General Manager Mike Paluszak said the fair may have to absorb the cost, though it does not want to volunteer to pay the sum.

“Everybody understands that although there are funding sources out there, they’re becoming more and more limited,” Paluszak said.

Paluszak noted that the California Coastal Commission rejected the board’s emergency application last November to build a rock embankment along the beach while it developed a long-term solution to control the erosion.