VENTURA : 4 Agencies to Decide Fate of Bicycle Path

Four governmental agencies will help decide what to do with the crumbling oceanside bicycle path near Seaside Park in Ventura, Assistant City Manager Steve Chase said this week.

The path has been eaten away by the ocean and tangled in jurisdictional disputes among the city, state parks, California Coastal Commission and the County Fair Board.

Chase told Ventura’s environment committee Thursday that the planning and environmental review process will begin in January and will include a series of public workshops in the spring.

He said staff members of the four groups had agreed to seek $50,000 from the city of Ventura, $50,000 from the Fair Board and $50,000 from the California Coastal Conservancy for the study.

“I think we have an opportunity here for a living laboratory on coastal erosion processes,” Chase said. He said the planning and review process would consider a range of options, including keeping the bike path where it is and moving it inland.

Chase also told the committee that the city would appear before the California Coastal Commission in December to ask to be released from liability for the bike path, which it does not own or manage.

The California Coastal Commission told the city and Fair Board in October that they had two years to remove a rock wall protecting the path from the ocean. Chase said Thursday that the city and Fair Board had already fulfilled another of the California Coastal Commission’s special conditions by detouring the bike path into a parking lot.