As the public resource it is, the parking should be free.
No walk in the park: Margie Reilly lives in Carmichael near the American River Parkway, and she loves it. "It's the most beautiful natural resource we have," she said. About once or twice a week, she likes to drive from her home, just the other side of Fair Oaks Boulevard, and park outside Ancil Hoffman Park to go for a long walk. Now, however, the county has moved to make that impossible. A pilot program for residential parking will force her to walk all the way from her house, or pay the park entry fees -- $4 each time. (Ironically, her first job in California was sitting in the kiosk there, collecting fees.) Now, however, "I don't have a lot of money," Reilly said. She only works part time. The residential parking was designed to give relief to homeowners adjacent to the park, who complained that people parked in their neighborhoods all day. Reilly suggested making it a two-hour zone instead of blanket no parking. "I just think: Give us two hours. If they want to be longer than that, they can pay the fee." She's out of luck. "We're not doing the two-hour parking thing," said Lupe Rodriguez, county senior civil engineer. The area is too spread out to patrol, he said. Remember, you'd have to have someone around to mark tires all the time. "We're trying our best," he said. It's a situation where not everyone is going to be happy. Reilly wonders, though, why are the ones who end up happy the ones with the expensive houses near the river?
