No on Beach-Parking Fees

Let me get this straight: The county of Santa Barbara decided to not collect crude oil production taxes from the oil companies drilling in the county, giving millions of dollars of subsidies to them yearly.

Then gave Rick Caruso a windfall of 15 million dollars over 10 years by exempting him from bed taxes on the troubled Miramar Hotel.

The County Parks Department and Board of Supervisors are now proposing to require the public to pay to park at their South Coast beaches, in hopes of generating one million dollars a year. This is troublesome because it is people who can least afford this fee who will be charged. The neighborhoods adjacent to these parks will also be affected by parked cars to avoid the fees.

I’ve opposed parking fees at Jalama Beach Park since 1979 because the monies generated in a park do not stay in that park; they are put into a general fund and used for whatever uses the county decides. Why does it fall to the South Coast beach-users to support the inland parks, like Toro Canyon, Manning, Schofield, Tucker’s Grove, Los Carneros, Nojoqui Falls, and Waller parks, to name a few?

Parking fees once instituted will never go away and will only go up.