Meeting to keep beaches free tonight in Bodega Bay
Meeting tonight about keeping beaches free
Free Our Beaches, Inc. and former Sonoma County supervisor Ernie Carpenter will hold a meeting tonight, Thursday, at 6:30 p.m. at the Bodega Bay Fire Station to discuss a recent State Park proposal to start charging fees for access to the coast.
Parks is discussing putting in “iron ranger” fee collection structures that would charge $8 for access to the coastline. A similar proposal in the past provoked weeks of protests and was finally squashed. State Parks has said it will not be holding meetings on the issue because of budget problems The agency has been contacted and invited to this meeting.
“We all understand the plight of government funding these days but to charge for viewing the sunset and parking on coastal bluffs is not right,” stated former Supervisor Ernie Carpenter. “It’s not acceptable in good economic or bad economic times. It will prevent fishermen, surfers, you, me and families from accessing the coast. I think they need a Coastal permit for that reason,” Carpenter con
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It isn’t just local access, but the added cost for those planing on coming here. These are purely punitive acts by the state. Collection from iron rangers has always been marginal in producing income, if any at all. If any money is spent enforcing the, it is way beyond what the collection brings in. The idea that there will be some pass dispensed sounds much more high tech tha iron rangers. These will cost substantially more than money collected, take time to design correctly, and prove vandal safe. Or there is going to be kiosks manned by the state (or more patrols) which is revenue negative. This is all to point out that it is NOT about getting money from these parks, but getting more money in general. There is no actual revenue to be got rom the iron rangers. This is the state’s uppity cop attitude towards local parks. Sticking it to us because they can, and want us to endorse other revenue packages. I vote for war.
well i could just buy a yearly park pass, if thats what i have to do ill do it, cuz the coast is awesome and its one of the best things about sonoma county. we live in very nice part of this planet and we should be glad we have these attractions at our fingertips.