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Paid beach parking on Bolivar a success By Marty Schladen The Daily News Published December 26, 2007 \BOLIVAR — County officials say the first year of a paid-parking program on Bolivar Peninsula beaches was a big success. The program, which requires those who park on the beach to display stickers, netted $158,000: about $8,000 more than projected in August when county officials knew the program was exceeding expectations. Commissioner Patrick Doyle and Parks and Senior Services Director Dennis Harris met this month with Bolivar residents to see how they wanted to spend the funds. State law requires that any money from beach-parking fees must be spent improving the beaches. The consensus was to use the funds that were generated this year to add trash barrels, trash pickup and port-a-potties to the 32-mile stretch of beach along Bolivar, Harris told the commissioners court last week. With future funds, residents would like to see a beach area with permanent toilets, showers and other amenities, Harris said. “They were very appreciative and felt it was a program they wanted to keep,” Harris said. One reason for the program’s success is that it involved Bolivar merchants early on. In January and February, the county sold $5 “Early Bird” season passes from the Parks and Senior Services headquarters in La Marque. But then in March, the county started selling lots of 25 passes to Bolivar merchants at $9.50 apiece. The merchants then could sell them for $10. That gave merchants an incentive to alert beachgoers that they needed a parking pass when the visitors stopped in for beer, suntan lotion, bait or anything else. How to enforce the program still has officials scratching their heads. In August, when its first season was winding down, County Judge Jim Yarbrough said he was reluctant to ask the sheriff’s department to ticket violators. Copyright © 2007 The Galveston County Daily News |
