What I want to know is, how can we get the county and city parks under the belt of the Golden Age Passport program? They took mine at the wildlife refuge in Ridgefield but not at Frenchman’s Bar. We’re paying taxes. Our passes need to be accepted by the city parks that charge a fee to get in.
— Lanay Myers, Five Corners
It’s been called the best bargain in the USA, but it’s still not the universal key to absolutely everything.
Your Golden Age Passport is one of roughly a zillion sold to folks age 62 and older — until Jan. 1, 2007. That’s when it was discontinued, and replaced with a similar pass called the “America the Beautiful” Interagency Senior Pass. It costs $10 and is good for the life of the owner.
What does it get you? Access to all admission-fee parks and recreation areas that are operated by the federal government. Generally, that means the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation.
Your pass got you into the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge, Lanay, because that site is operated by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. It doesn’t get you parking spaces at our local parks — because Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation never got a nibble of the price of the pass, nor the federal taxes you paid.
“The National Park Service’s Golden Age Passports are not accepted at Clark County parks because they are local parks, not national parks,” county parks spokeswoman Jilayne Jordan explained by e-mail. “Our parks are funded entirely by local (not federal) user fees and taxes. We do not receive any funding from the National Park Service to operate or maintain our parks, so we have no plans to start accepting their passes.”
Nearly all local parks are free to park at and enter. Only the larger regional parks and boat launches charge parking fees. They are: Salmon Creek/Klineline Pond, Vancouver Lake, Frenchman’s Bar, Lewisville and Wintler parks and the Daybreak, Happa and Marine Park boat launches. Bicyclists and pedestrians can get into all these parks for free.
There’s a $40 annual parking pass that lets motorists park at any park as often as they like (except the Marine Park Boat Launch, where special fees apply, and Wintler Park, where daily fees are charged).
“Even if you only visit the parks twice a month, the annual passes provide a great discount,” Jordan said.
She said there currently are no discounts for senior or disabled citizens. “We will likely look at doing so in the future as we continue to develop and refine our parking pass program,” she said.
