$5 Parking Fee in National Forests

* As Angelenos head up to the mountains this spring, they’ll discover that they now have to pay a $5 parking fee to enjoy our local national forests (Feb. 19). Hikers, hunters, fishermen and others will be footing the bill for years of neglect by Congress, which has failed to adequately fund non-motorized recreational use of our public lands.

There has been no shortage of funds for timber cutting, however. The president’s Council of Economic Advisors announced (Feb. 20) that American taxpayers subsidized timber cutting on national forests to the tune of $234 million for 1996 alone! Picnickers, hikers and fishermen should not have to pay for parking when they are already subsidizing destructive logging in our national forests.

JIM SCHOEDLER

Pasadena

* Why is all the fuss being made about a $5 fee for parking in Southern California’s national forests? Nobody questions the basic premise that it costs money to attend many attractions and forms of entertainment.

If we as a nation want some of our lands preserved for future generations, it’s going to cost money to accomplish that purpose. If people have an investment--monetary or emotional--in property, they’re more likely to take good care of that property.

I remember growing up in a low-income household. Never, ever, did it dawn on any member of my family to assert that, somehow, we were “entitled” to a free ride. If a form of entertainment cost too much for us, we either couldn’t attend or couldn’t attend as often as we otherwise would have wanted. However, when we were able to attend such an event, it became an anticipated and very special occasion.

BETTY ROME

Culver City

* As a naturalist and frequent visitor to Southern California’s national forests, I can live with the parking fees to be implemented this spring. I’m even a bit amused by the politicians who champion tax-slashing by simply shifting the “taxation” elsewhere through “user fees” and other devices. But I ask one thing of our local national forest managers: Please find a way to exact your fees from those thousands of commuters from the endless sea of housing tracts in Palmcaster who use forest roads daily to avoid freeway congestion (and how about a big surcharge for the developers of those tracts).

And please find a way to slap a fee on the hordes of motorcyclists whose deafening nonstop romps through the Angeles National Forest each weekend destroy the experience for those of us who simply wish to use the forest for what the forest has to offer.

KIMBALL L. GARRETT

La Crescenta