Fees at 6 County Parks to Double : Recreation: Supervisors approve an increase from $1 to $2. The new weekend entry rate takes effect Nov. 1.

Citing the rising cost of keeping county parks clean and green, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday raised weekend entrance fees at six county parks from $1 to $2 and increased half a dozen other recreational fees.

The board also considered plans to institute a $1 fee for weekday admission to the parks, which are now free, but shelved them after Ojai Valley residents complained angrily about the cost.

Before the complaints and the vote, the supervisors were already showing some reluctance to charge higher fees at the six of the county’s 14 parks that have gates: Camarillo Grove Park, College Park in Oxnard, Foster Park, Oak Park in Simi Valley, Soule Park in Ojai and Steckel Park in Santa Paula.

“I really would not like to see us increase these” fees, Supervisor Vicky Howard said.

The county would not be able to afford to hire gatekeepers to collect gate fees at the county parks on weekdays, and the public might not pay the extra dollar if honor boxes are installed, Howard said.

She said of the honor-box fees, “They’re voluntary, we don’t know if we’re going to get them or not.”

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey said, “There’s some who can afford paying money to the parks and would not mind doing it. But I don’t want to keep young families from doing it, either.”

Then an Ojai Valley resident angrily addressed the board:

“I want to know from the Board of Supervisors where we’re supposed to get this extra dollar to get to the parks that we support with our taxes,” Bea Foley said. “Where do you expect the public to get the money?’

Another woman asked the supervisors to--at the very least--refrain from charging weekday admissions.

The woman, identifying herself only as Mrs. Richard Davis, an Ojai Valley mobile home owner, also asked the supervisors to vote down a proposed $50 annual fee to mobile home parks that straddle the Ojai Valley Trail.

Supervisor Maggie Kildee noted that the parks are supported by income from the Channel Islands Harbor and user fees, not by taxes. But she and the other supervisors agreed only to increase the weekend entry fee from $1 to $2, while forgoing the weekday entry fee and the $50 annual mobile home park fee.

The supervisors’ vote also raised fees for boaters at the county-owned Channel Islands Harbor: towing and pumping fees for crippled vessels will rise from $45 to $50; daytime launch-ramp parking increases from $1 to $2 and overnight from $2 to $5; the fee for recreational vehicle parking at the ramp was increased from $10 to $12 and the fee for retrieving impounded or abandoned vehicles went from $45 to $50.

The money could save the department $115,000 a year, but that would only partly offset a $600,000 cut in state aid to the county’s parks, harbor and recreation sites, said Blake Boyle, manager of recreation services for the county General Services Agency.

The fee increases take effect Nov. 1, he said.