California Department Of Parks And Recreation

The Mountains Education Program is offering a toll-free information service to help residents of Los Angeles and Ventura counties plan summer outings at mountain parks and beaches. Bilingual Spanish-English operators are available to assist callers with information on activities and facilities at the various parks. Designed in cooperation with the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the National Park Service and other parks agencies, the number is 1-800-533-PARK.

Californians are feeling betrayed after learning that the Department of Parks and Recreation, while pleading abject poverty and begging for donors to keep 70 state parks from closing, was hoarding nearly $54 million in special accounts, underreporting its holdings to the state. Much of the money was earmarked for specific purposes, but even the remainder is enough to keep the 70 parks open for close to two years. Some of the donors who generously stepped forward to form nonprofits to run parks complain that they were duped.

The Santa Monica Mountains District of the California Department of Parks and Recreation has been expanded to include 20,000 acres in the Mojave Desert, department officials announced Wednesday. The district, which formerly covered 40,000 acres, has been renamed the Angeles District to reflect the change, said Daniel C. Preece, deputy regional director. The district office will be moved from Newbury Park to Calabasas on July 21, he said.

Already struggling to stay out of bankruptcy, Bell has been told by the state Department of Parks and Recreation that it owes the agency nearly $500,000 because of irregularities in its spending of grant money, mostly under former City Administrator Robert Rizzo. In a memorandum last week to the City Council, interim Chief Administrative Officer Ken Hampian called the problem "a sizable one. " Hampian has just completed his first week on the job. The city faces a deficit of more than $4 million.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation will hold an open house today at its new Angeles District headquarters in Malibu Creek State Park, agency officials have announced. The event, scheduled for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1925 Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas, is meant to acquaint the public with recent changes in area park operations. The state agency moved its district headquarters in July from Newbury Park to Malibu Creek State Park.

The National Park Service and California Department of Parks and Recreation are seeking ways to cut costs by consolidating operations of state and federal parks with common boundaries in the Santa Monica Mountains and two other sites in California, officials with the agencies have announced.

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.

Responding to years of criticism from conservationists that the city of Los Angeles has botched its efforts to preserve the historic Watts Towers, the California Department of Parks and Recreation will release a report today it hopes will reassure the public that the towers, although in need of conservation, are in no immediate danger of falling apart.

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.

Ah, wilderness: clean air, mountain vistas, star-filled sky and broadband Internet access with e-mail, music downloads, news feeds, stock tickers, sports updates, streaming radio, movie trailers, poker sites, celebrity gossip and information on just about everything. You can even read all about the nature around you in lieu of experiencing it. Yes, all the wonders of the Internet are now -- or will soon be -- available at a state campground near you.

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.

Taking up the debate over stewardship of the nation's largest urban park, Los Angeles' Cultural Heritage Commission voted Thursday to consider an application to designate Griffith Park a historic-cultural monument. The move triggers a review of the park by commissioners, who must make a recommendation to the Los Angeles City Council within 75 days. Supporters of the designation argued at Thursday's hearing that historic-cultural status is needed to protect the park from commercial projects like those proposed under a 2005 master plan for the park that was quickly scrapped by City Hall.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now that the flame-colored wildflowers are gone, the best thing about the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve may be its visitor center. Closed to the public since the brief poppy season ended in May, the long, low building all but disappears into the undulating hillside behind it, in the 1,745-acre park 15 miles west of Lancaster.

For 30 years, Ginger Kershner has reveled in a beach lover's dream pad: an affordable five-bedroom rental on two acres in lower Topanga Canyon, with room for kids, horse, dogs and cats, a quick skip across Pacific Coast Highway from sand and surf. She is heartbroken--not to mention hopping mad--at the prospect of having to leave. But vacate she must, or so says the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

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.

Ah, wilderness: clean air, mountain vistas, star-filled sky and broadband Internet access with e-mail, music downloads, news feeds, stock tickers, sports updates, streaming radio, movie trailers, poker sites, celebrity gossip and information on just about everything. You can even read all about the nature around you in lieu of experiencing it. Yes, all the wonders of the Internet are now -- or will soon be -- available at a state campground near you.