All Castaic Lake users please read, important info

Castaic Lake is Closing September 1st

The
Castaic Chamber of Commerce
requests
YOU to take time from your busy schedule
to attend the
Castaic Town Council meeting
Wednesday August 20, 2003 7:00 p.m.
28131 Livingston Ave • Valencia

They will be addressing the closure of the lake

We need your input!
We need to know what your feelings are
We need additional ideas to resolve this crisis
We need to show a uniform front to combat this issue

It is imperative that we have as many members of our residential and business community attend .This closure will affect you and your business.

The closure will be a detriment to our entire community

Your community needs YOU!
If you need additional information please contact your local Town Council Representative or the Castaic Chamber

thanks for the info Neelley

anyone else gonna be there??

I'm trying to re-schedule some things to be able to go.

A little good news is that the closure has been extended to the 7th now. I know it's only one more week, but it sounds like a push is being made to try to keep it open. There's a story about the extension in the Times today.

--------------------
Castaic Lake Closure Delayed a Week
--------------------

The recreation area will stay open through Sept. 7. L.A. County officials hope to find funds to keep it operating.

By Stephanie Stassel
Times Staff Writer

August 20 2003

With the closure of the Castaic Lake State Recreation Area delayed one week, state officials on Tuesday said they were searching for ways to keep the popular spot open to the public.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-castaic20aug20,1,6041909.story

I am going to try to make it as well.

I'll be there.

Castaic lake will be open 1 week longer, which means everyones efforts, e-mails and phone calls are having an effect. So lets keep up the pressure. Please cut and past the following and send to the following supervisors. Remember to include your name and address.
Thanks,
JB
To:
"Supervisor Antonovich" <fifthdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us>, "Supervisor Burke" <seconddistrict@bos.co.la.>

Honorable Supervisors

*

Twice now we, the voters of Los Angeles County, have approved County propositions that have increased our property taxes so that you could finance special projects within our parks and acquire new parks.* As you know the Department of Parks and Recreation has not been able to spend all of that money and because of limitations imposed on how that money can be spent, has built things that now sit unused because there never was any funding provided for operating them once built.*

*

What I now propose is that a new proposition be placed before the voters of this county in the upcoming election that would permit you to use a portion of the Prop A funds to keep the Castaic Lake Recreational Area open and operational as well as some of the other park facilities that are unfunded.* I am certain that support for this measure would be strong as it does not increase the existing tax but rather fixes the original Prop A measures so that facilities like the Water Play Area at Santa Fe Dam, built with our tax dollars but operationally unfunded, can be available to us.* Castaic Lake is important to the voters of Los Angeles County as are all of our parks.* If such a measure were to be passed Castaic Lake could continue to be an asset to this county instead of a symbol of political and economic failure.
*

Did anyone go to the meeting? I did and got up and spoke to the few representitives that were there, mostly about how I come from a different community and spen a lot of money in the town. Apparently Castaic has no idea whats going on, the stae is completely unequiped to handle anything, and the L.A. county doesn't care that it will nearly destroy one of it's communities.

I was there Josh, nice job speaking by the way.

It was pitiful to see all the government officials passing the buck. It was pretty obvious to me that none of them seemed to have a clue as to how this needs to be handled. They were all more concerned with keeping their own hands clean.

I left the meeting feeling pretty down on the chances of the lake staying open. As a Castaic resident and wakeboarder, things are not looking good at all.

The problem is that the lake doesn't have a champion. Nobody to take the reigns and handle the crisis. The councel is completely befuddled. They have no plan themselves. Nothing is being done to raise awareness to what is happening, or the consequences. No flyers at the lake, tiny banners on the corners that are easilly missed to a website that is not providing any petition. There was a lot of talk from residents too, but nobody was stepping up with any kind of plan or program to get any kind of action happening. Very good points were raised last night about the unconstitutionality, but no kind of organization what-so-ever. Nobody is really doing anything organized unfortunately. Thats the key to saving the lake.

To quote Wareen Zevon.
"Send Lawyers, Guns and Money, the s#$t has hit the fan"

how do you close a lake?

They are going to lock the gates, and patrol the perimeter. There will be no land or water access. We won't be allowed on land that is considered public land.

Ironically, the state rep stated that he figured it would cost the state AT LEAST $1 million just to shut the lake down and secure it, let alone patrol it. The county only needs a little under $2 million to operate it. Why the governments can't put 2 and 2 together here is mind boggling.

Actually, nobody knows how their gonna close it. The county's dropping it, the state doesn't want it, and law enforcement is already spread too thin to handle the job. The plan to hand the lake back was a very poorly conceived thing. Nobody gave any thought to impact or anything.

during the meeting. did anyone `bring up ideas to help raise more money for the lake. i.e raising entrance fees.

The state parks representitive addressed that and said that when it's been tried at other venues, attendance dropped signifigantly to where they actually lost money off of the gate.