Supervisors to Split Parks, Harbor Departments

Despite pleas by parks officials, Ventura County supervisors agreed Tuesday to split their parks and harbor into separate departments, weaning the parks of an annual subsidy and forcing the recreational areas to pay for themselves.

After years of siphoning money from Channel Island Harbor, supervisors said they made the decision because officials there want to launch an ambitious master plan, including a proposed aquarium, high-rise office or apartment complex and numerous other improvements.

Under the current policy, the harbor generates half the money used to finance the parks. By 2001, officials want the parks to be self-sufficient, generating revenue by building more golf courses and other projects.

“We are not taking [money] from the parks,” Supervisor Judy Mikels said. “We’re leaving it with the harbor, where it was generated.”

General Services Agency Director Peter S. Pedroff said the harbor now diverts $1.2 million in revenue to the county parks system, which administers 18 parks, golf courses and community centers.

Pedroff plans to “fast-track” new projects on county property that would enable the parks to be self-sufficient within five years.

Those development proposals include golf courses near Moorpark, Camarillo and Santa Paula; expanded campgrounds and an endangered species zoo near Moorpark; a gymnasium in El Rio; a farm implement museum in Oxnard; an entertainment complex in Camarillo and a number of other, profit-making enterprises.

“We’re going to really have to fast-track these projects to get them online to replace the [harbor] subsidies,” Pedroff said. “That is our goal.”

Park services would not suffer as a result of the change in policy, Pedroff told the board. His remarks offered little comfort to some members of the advisory Parks and Harbor Commission.

“The parks cannot sustain themselves without the money received from the harbor,” said parks Commissioner Jackie Ramseyer, who said no new parks or golf courses have opened in her seven years on the panel.

“We have a very poor track record of approving facilities.”

About half of the $2.4-million parks system budget comes out of money raised by the Channel Islands Harbor, an aging marina that merchants and boat owners renting slips complain needs serious renovations.

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Effective July 1, the policy adopted Tuesday calls for a $1-million subsidy for the parks in the upcoming fiscal year, with dwindling payments to the parks system in each of the following years.

Ideally, no money would be diverted from the harbor to the parks by 2001--a prospect that worries several commissioners.

“This whole thing is premature,” Commissioner Bob Purdam told supervisors. “It should be tabled until we get some of these [projects] online. The money coming in will solve the problem.”

The new policy also would whittle five positions from the two departments and save about $190,000 in salary and benefits. The search for a full-time harbor director will begin within weeks.

“We need to treat that harbor more like a business, like we would treat a mall,” said Supervisor John K. Flynn, whose district includes the Channel Islands Harbor. “All of the malls have a mall manager.”

Those who do business at the harbor encouraged supervisors to make the change.

“If you don’t focus on the generator of the income first, then the parks are ultimately going to suffer,” said Randy Short, general manager of Almar Ltd., which manages about 450 boat slips at the harbor.

Ventura County receives about $5 million a year from the harbor--money that harbor operators want for their own use.

“The recession within the marina industry is getting worse,” Short said. “It’s amazing to me that the harbor would have to operate under worse conditions than the parks they fund.”

Carla Bard, an environmentalist whose family decades ago donated the acreage for the Channel Islands Harbor, urged supervisors to reject the proposal.

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Harbor officials should not pay for their projects by taking money from county parks, Bard said.

“I suggest that if the harbor needs capital improvements today, a way be found for the private sector, the lessees, the users and future developers to fund the projects,” she said.

Pedroff said the revenue would be diverted from parks to pay for staple renovations such as landscaping, streets, parking and general harbor maintenance.

Additional money would be spent implementing capital improvements identified in the 20-year master plan such as an aquarium, a high-rise office or apartment building or other expansion.

The master plan is now being reviewed for its environmental impact, and should come before the Board of Supervisors in September, he said.