California Department Of Parks And Recreation

What do Los Angeles residents really want in their parks? To take the public pulse, the Department of Recreation and Parks is launching the first citywide study in eight years to gauge how people view their 15,700 acres of park space. The $350,000 study comes 18 months after City Controller Laura Chick faulted the department for being out of touch with park users' wishes.

On a postcard-perfect bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a state park ranger lives in a state-owned cottage overlooking Orange County's Crystal Cove State Park, a 3.5-mile stretch of coastal parkland between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach. His rent: $148 a month. The cottage is one of 1,181 houses, cabins and dorms across the state provided to employees at 13 state agencies in 2003, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $8.3 million, according to a report from state Auditor Elaine M. Howle.

Note to all the California surfers, fishers and beach bunnies who have long considered the landmark Malibu Pier their own: The name that goes with it is once again safely in public hands. After a two-week trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, an eight-member jury decided unanimously that the state Department of Parks and Recreation is the rightful holder of the Malibu Pier name and malibupier.com Internet domain name.

For those who fear that government always moves at a glacial pace, the city of Los Angeles may be poised to provide a new poster child: golf carts. The Department of Recreation and Parks has tried three times in six years to hire a company to rent out electric carts at the city's seven 18-hole golf courses. Yet even that relatively mundane service is a source of discontent for high-paid lobbyists, labor activists and political operatives. Search panels have been convened. Walk-throughs have been held at the Griffith Park "cart barn," where the current city vendor shelters vehicles.

State parks officials and disability rights groups announced Tuesday an agreement aimed at improving access for disabled visitors at more than 270 parks and recreational areas across California. The agreement, announced in Oakland, resolves two lawsuits charging that disabled people were unfairly denied access to state recreational facilities. "We are thrilled," said Larry Paradis, executive director of the Oakland-based Disability Rights Advocates and lead counsel for the plaintiffs.

The fight over a proposed toll road through San Onofre State Beach Park moved north Friday as the State Park and Recreation Commission urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to block the controversial 16-mile project. At a Tahoe City meeting chaired by Commissioner and actor-director Clint Eastwood, the panel unanimously called for Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn named Jon Mukri on Wednesday to head the Department of Recreation and Parks, as Mukri's outgoing predecessor warned that the mayor had not provided the agency with adequate support or resources. Mukri, a veteran manager who has headed the city's General Services Department since January 2000, is to take over an agency where a hiring freeze has left 22% of the positions vacant. The department, which manages 387 parks, has 2,285 authorized positions.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday reappointed his brother-in-law, Robert Sargent Shriver III, and filmmaker-actor Clint Eastwood to four-year terms on the state Park and Recreation Commission. Both Shriver, 49, a Democrat and brother of First Lady Maria Shriver, and Eastwood, 73, a Republican and former mayor of Carmel, were first appointed to the advisory commission by former Gov. Gray Davis in 2001.

It has always been a little jewel to visitors, this campground by the bay with a dense canopy of trees, making it seem like something out of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy rather than the arid Central Coast. Even on the sunniest days, large, haphazard campsites in the shade are its hallmark, making Morro Bay State Park Campground a popular destination for folks fleeing the hot climes of Bakersfield, Fresno and Los Angeles.