County Path-Users Fee Appears a Step Closer : Parks: Officials report little interest in an alternative trail adoption program. The L. A. City Council opposes the proposed $23-a-year permit.

County officials conceded Tuesday that they have met with little success in persuading businesses to support an “Adopt-a-Trail” program to maintain county parks, and indicated that a controversial fee for trail use by hikers, bikers and equestrians is likely.

Los Angeles County supervisors said they hope to make a final decision Tuesday on whether to institute the program or enforce a recently enacted $23 annual fee for park users.

But at least one of them--Supervisor Gloria Molina--scolded her colleagues, saying they were continuing to seek help from private donors as a way of postponing a potentially unpopular political decision to enforce the fee, which has drawn the ire of many nature lovers.

“We’ve got to put something in place. I am tired of beating a dead horse,” Molina said. “The trails should be open and free, and user fees are unfair. But we need to do this or we’ll have to close the trails.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles City Council voted 12 to 0 Tuesday to oppose the annual fee program, saying hikers who accidentally stray from city trails onto interconnected county trails could face stiff fines.

County Department of Parks and Recreation officials have said that if they begin enforcing the annual fee Sunday, as planned, those caught using trails without a pass could face a $54 citation.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who sponsored the city measure, added that the fee “is especially onerous to individuals of limited means who utilize these trails for recreational purposes.”

County parks officials have said the fee is necessary to raise at least $150,000 a year to maintain trails during a time of budget cuts. Supervisors put off deciding whether to enforce the fee program in late January, saying they wanted to give park officials two weeks to gauge whether merchants and corporate sponsors would be interested in participating.

As of Tuesday, however, only 7.9% of the smaller businesses contacted by parks officials in a phone survey said they would be interested in adopting a specific trail, county Parks Director Rodney E. Cooper said. He said many of the larger corporations couldn’t give an immediate answer since they only consider funding requests a year ahead of time.

Nevertheless, he said, “there are very few sponsors out there willing to do much given the economy. So I’m very skeptical given what’s out there.”

The Adopt-a-Trail program is sponsored by Supervisor Mike Antonovich and would be similar to the successful statewide adopt-a-highway program, in which companies and individuals pay to clean up particular stretches of highway in return for signs giving them credit for participating. Under the county proposal, each mile of trail would be sold to a corporate sponsor for $500. Cooper said few companies have shown an interest in spending that much money.

So far, Cooper said, about 1,000 hikers, bikers and equestrians have bought the passes, but that only one in 10 people on the trails had passes with them.

Cooper also told the supervisors that they could enact a compromise version of the fee program by exempting those under the age of 16 from paying, and by selling three-day passes for $6.