Parks Should Be Supported

Ventura County’s 1996 decision to wean its parks department from the income stream of Channel Islands Harbor has been bad for the once-exemplary parks and not particularly good for the harbor.

We believe parks are an important pillar of any area’s quality of life, well worth the costs to run them. Limiting public access to them by charging high user fees or by fencing them off to build profit-producing golf courses defeats their purpose. Therefore we encourage the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to find a new source of financial support for these vital assets.

A recent article by Times staff writer Matt Surman described the series of bad ideas that have been proposed--and shot down--since the parks were ordered to start paying their own way: an amphitheater near Camarillo, a theme park and convention center near Moorpark, expanded overnight parking for recreational vehicles on the coastal Rincon Highway north of Ventura.

The article noted that many California counties have experimented with moneymaking programs for their parks but most still rely on some form of county subsidy to help cover about half the parks’ costs.

Only San Bernardino County’s parks department is completely self-sufficient--and even that is hardly a success story. San Bernardino’s county parks had to shut down for several weeks in 1995 and 1996, and even now, most of them are open only five days a week and maintenance has suffered greatly.

Here in Ventura County, parks department leaders have come up with numerous innovative ways to rise to the supervisors’ challenge.

The closest thing to a viable plan is golf courses--and plenty of them. In July, the Board of Supervisors approved an 18-hole course at Happy Camp Regional Park north of Moorpark. A private developer would lease the land and pay for building the course. Two more courses are proposed, one in Santa Paula and another at the site of the proposed Camarillo amphitheater.

It makes sense to use some of the county’s parkland for golf, which is as legitimate a means for enjoying outdoor recreation as hiking or playing baseball. But every time a fee for using public facilities is added or raised, a larger percentage of residents is financially locked out.

Despite vigorous ongoing debate in Ventura County over precisely how such necessities as health care and law enforcement should be funded, no one questions that these are legitimate uses for public money. We believe parks belong in the same category, essential to the physical and mental well-being of all county residents.

We urge the Board of Supervisors to reverse this ill-advised decision.