INSIDE

Hurray! Fees dropped
at Lighthouse Marine Park

Visitors to Lighthouse Marine Park won’t run into a tollbooth this summer and parks employees will be able to focus on upkeep and improving the park.

After county executive Pete Kremen’s approval the traditional $4 day use parking fee for non-residents and non-property owners was eliminated completely on January 4.

“For every receipt we wrote last year I’ll bet we turned around someone who didn’t want to pay,” said park manager Ben Van Buskirk who first proposed eliminating the fees. “It wasn’t really good for public relations and it wasn’t encouraging tourism.”

Van Buskirk wrote a report late last year illustrating that the fees weren’t substantially offsetting the cost of park maintenance, since he had to budget for staff to man the booth at the park entrance where the fees collected weren’t much more. “It was barely in the black since on average the cost of staffing was as much as was collected in fees,” he said,

Van Buskirk said the chamber of commerce and the economic development committee had both written in support of eliminating the fees. “Philosophically that fee was taken away mostly in support of our businesses, but I don’t want property owners to think they are going to shoulder more costs,” he said. “I think we can do things to offset the revenue.”

To start with, this year the park will take reservations for a fee for individual as well as group campsites. Residents of the county will pay $15 and non-residents $19 for their first night stay plus a $7 reservation fee to hold their spot. Camping information is available at www.whatcomcounty .us/parks, click on Lighthouse.

With a weekend like the Victoria Day long weekend, the reservation fee can generate substantial revenue for the park. The campgrounds were all full, with 221 non-residents and 12 local campers. Over 200 day use visitors also came to the park.

What will be missing at the park this year is the food concession, as Van Buskirk said he was unable to find someone to run it. He blamed an inadequate space and poor ventilation for the lack of applicants.
“In my next budget I’ll be asking to see how to make it better,” he said.