Council to Review Park Access Hours

Good fences may make good neighbors, but locked gates apparently don’t.

The residents of two Moorpark area neighborhoods--Mountain Meadows and Home Acres--have been feuding for months over whether to lock the gates to a park connecting the two communities.

Trying to resolve the dispute, the Moorpark City Council has for the last three months been locking up a little later at night and opening the gates a little earlier in the morning.

The result? There have been no significant incidents or police calls, officials said. But the new hours have had an impact on the city’s budget. Officials estimate that since November, it has cost the city an extra $1,382 just to open and lock the gate every day. If the hours are maintained that cost would add up to about $7,161 annually.

At a meeting tonight the council is going to revisit the scheduled hours for the park.

The small enclosed park that connects Moorpark’s Mountain Meadows community to Home Acres, just outside the city limits, was traditionally used by Home Acres residents as a way to walk or bike into the city for work, school or shopping.

But last summer the city started to lock the gate at 8 p.m. and would not open it again until 7 a.m.

Several Home Acres residents who tried to walk to school in the morning or come home a little late from work or from shopping, were shut out. The only way for some to get home was to take a detour for several miles along California 118.

Home Acres residents had wanted the park gates to be left open all the time, but residents across the park in Moorpark complained that the park would attract a bad element. They wanted the park closed from dusk until dawn.

The city compromised deciding to keep the park locked between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. for three months and see what happened. The council will decide tonight if it can afford to keep those hours or if it should change the opening and closing schedule.