I know I have had some unusual requests and quirky ideas before, but this time I have had a real brainstorm. Without going into great detail there was a meeting with Tim Gallagher Director of Parks and Recreation, and a few folks to discuss the future of Lake Castaic. Bottom line is this, the County cannot run the lake for the State without the State stepping to the plate and forking over close to 2 million dollars. I know we have gone over and over this placing blame here and there. Now the burden lies with the State Legislatures. Each one is responsible for different state agencies that have funds (even with the budget as it is). Gallagher explained his reasoning for forcing the States hand to give the County monies to keep the lake in the hands of the County. The cost to the County to run the lake is roughly 2million dollars. The cost to the State to secure the lake initially would be an estimated 3.7 million dollars. That is immediate cash outlay. The State would have to secure the lake from vandals, the Dam from terrorist, and CHP patrolling the lake trying to keep people from breaking in to fish, etc. His recommendation was to call certain Legislatures and let them know of your concerns.
Here is where the Brainstorm/fart comes in. There had already been some discussion among some anglers, skiers and other boaters to get a rally of boats and drive to the Hahn Building downtown to get the Board of Supervisors attention. Well there is nothing further that they can do without the State giving the County the money to keep it open.
Sooooooo here is the quirky idea, we want to get as many boats as possible to drive to Sacramento to the Capital building for a rally getting the attention of the legislators to see that it would cost less for them to fund the lake than just to secure it. The tentative date for the boat parade and rally at the Capital is Tuesday morning, August 12th. The reason for that day is that is when ALL the legislatures are in Sacramento. If you are interested in going please email me @ Castaicdave@sbcglobal.net and I will give you more details. Please, please, please tell everyone you know who has a boat to join us (with their boats) at the Capital building!!!!

Thank you very much for reading this extremely long post, Please help keep this great fishery open!

David Jarrell