MOORPARK : Panel May Discuss Bid to Build Courses

The Ventura County Parks and Harbor Commission is tentatively scheduled to discuss a bid to build two 18-hole golf courses at Happy Camp Canyon Regional Park near Moorpark at its Oct. 19 meeting.

The public golf courses would be built on the lower 700 acres of the park where a Western-style theme park had once been planned. The upper 3,000 acres would remain a wilderness area.

As part of the lease agreement with the county, the owners of the golf courses would either make an annual lease payment to the county or pay a percentage of their receipts, which could amount to as much as $250,000 a year, county officials said.

A portion of the money would be used to help pay for maintenance of the trails on the upper 3,000 acres of the park.

The county solicited proposals in July from golf course designers to develop the area, but received just one bid, from local developer Ralph Mahan, who first proposed the idea.

But Mahan’s proposal does not meet the terms laid out by the county’s Department of Recreation Services, said Robert Amore, lease manager for the park.

“We’ve only tentatively scheduled the item because we’re still negotiating the terms of Mahan’s bid,” he said.

Amore declined to comment on the differences between the terms laid out by the county and Mahan’s proposal until the terms have been completed.

The original terms would have required that the developer pay a $25,000 lease-purchase option for the two-year environmental review and permitting process.

If a new agreement is reached and the commission approves its terms, the proposal would go before the Board of Supervisors on Nov. 8, Amore said.