Deputies to End Pyramid Lake Patrols : Finance: Sheriff’s Department cites budget woes. U.S. Forest Service considers options, including closure of site.

A sheriff’s boat patrol on popular Pyramid Lake will end effective July 1, and as a result federal officials are considering closing the boat ramp, capping the number of boats or closing the lake.

The decision by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to discontinue the patrols, responsible for 1,000 rescues each year, was purely budgetary.

“It certainly is going to diminish the level of safety,” said Capt. Jerry Conklin of the department’s Santa Clarita station. “But in the scheme of priorities, patrol on Pyramid Lake doesn’t compare with other more crime-ridden operations under the sheriff’s jurisdiction.”

The decision ends 10 years of sheriff’s patrols on the Angeles National Forest lake, which draws 275,000 visitors each year. The department is facing a $108-million budget cut this year due to declining revenues.

Closing Pyramid Lake is a possibility if forest service officials are unable to balance recreation needs against public safety needs, said Don Stikkers, assistant recreation officer for the Angeles National Forest.

“It’s a last resort,” Stikkers said.

Mike Wickmam, district ranger for the Saugus ranger district of the Angeles National Forest, said that U.S. Forest Service officials will begin assessing options--ranging from partial to total closure of the boat ramp to reducing the number of boats allowed on the lake.

Deputy Mark Shoemaker said the public can expect an increase in accidents and delayed medical care as a result of the patrol termination, citing the numerous calls, including drownings and boating accidents that deputies respond to on the lake.

“All those things will continue to happen,” Shoemaker said. “But who will come to help those people?

“If you get hurt out on the lake you are going to have to figure out your own way to get in (to shore),” Shoemaker said. “Anything that happens on the lake will have no response.”

Shoemaker’s partner, Deputy Rick Keegan, agreed.

“I think the public is really getting the short end of this,” said Keegan, who plans to retire next month. Shoemaker will be reassigned from the boat patrol in July.

Chet Roberts, president of Pyramid Enterprises, a private concessionaire contracted with the U.S. Forest Service to operate facilities at Pyramid Lake, called the decision “detrimental.”

“I have a real problem with placing money in front of public safety,” Roberts said. “I feel the Sheriff’s Department move is very detrimental to boating at Pyramid Lake and it’s a bad precedent to set.”

Sheriff’s deputies issue more than 100 citations for unsafe boating each year and provide first aid treatment to as many injury victims, Shoemaker said.

Conklin said the termination of the patrols will save the department at least $160,000 in salaries and $10,000 more in operating expenses.

As a result, response times to areas surrounding the lake could increase between 10 and 30 minutes, officials said. With no presence at the lake, the department will send deputies from the nearest substations in Gorman or Valencia.

The announcement marks the first step in service cutbacks in the Santa Clarita area, which could spread throughout the unincorporated areas surrounding the city if the department’s budget situation fails to improve, Conklin said.

About 40,000 people live in the unincorporated areas encircling Santa Clarita, which makes up roughly 25% of the population and covers 80% of the 656 square-mile area patrolled by sheriff’s deputies from the Santa Clarita station.

Conklin said that future cuts facing his station hang in the balance pending budget decisions by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

“The sheriff is very reluctant to run his department as business as usual,” Conklin said. “We would love to leave everything in place and hold our breaths and hope it all works, but we’re not optimistic.”

The county is facing a $1.6-billion projected budget shortfall stemming from a $52.1-billion state spending plan that would shift $2.6 billion in property tax revenue away from local governments to state coffers to fund schools.