A new electronic gate at Manzanita Park gives users access – for a price.

For years, some North County residents complained that a locked gate at the entrance to Manzanita County Park was blocking access to public land, making it in essence a private park for the youth association that runs a sports complex there. The gate was only open during special events and youth sporting practices and games.

For about three weeks, the gate has been swinging open all day every day for anyone who wants drive-in access – anyone with $50, that is. Now instead of parking along Castroville Boulevard then walking or riding horses around the gate and up a steep driveway, users may drive in and use the parking lot.

A partnership between Monterey County and the North County Youth Recreation Association led to the installation of an electronic gate earlier this year at a cost of about $40,000. The county, which owns the land, and the nonprofit, which leases 50 of the park’s 450 acres, each contributed $20,000, says District 2 Supervisor John Phillips, who facilitated the deal. Association volunteers provided much of the labor.

To get in, park users have to buy electronic key cards, good for one year, from Prunedale Ace Hardware, which is donating the service. The money goes to the youth association for maintaining the gate.

Dan Thompson, NCYRA president, says having a gate is necessary to protect the nonprofit’s investment in the ball fields it maintains. Before there was a gate, he says, the fields were chewed up by vandals driving cars over grassy areas. The gate system is also convenient: No one has to open it since it can be programmed to automatically open and close on its own. Since installation it opens every day for public use – no key card required – from 3-8pm weekdays, and 10am-dusk on Saturdays. (The gate opens automatically for vehicles exiting after hours, and cardholders can get in outside of those limited hours.)

The response to the new gate has been positive, Thompson says, especially from those who say it’s worth the money to park their cars and horse trailers inside the park, instead outside along the roadway, where break-ins were common.

“They love it,” Thompson says of the new gate. “They say it’s like having our own private park.”

That is still precisely the problem, says Prunedale resident and equestrian Susan Ferry. The state of California sold the land to Monterey County in the 1970s with the proviso that it be used for recreation.

“There’s a real need for recreational opportunities in the North County, but it’s all locked up by [NCYRA],” Ferry says. “They control the gate, they lease 50 acres from the county, but that park is 500 acres.”

Ferry says she drives 30 minutes to Fort Ord with her horse trailer so she can ride the trails there, instead of five minutes to Manzanita Park. She says she would not be opposed to a plan that includes paying for day use.

Phillips says a day-use plan could prove too cumbersome to manage. He admits the annual pass system is not ideal, but that there isn’t enough money in the county budget to turn the land into a full-fledged park. By operating on the 50 acres it leases, the NCYRA is facilitating access to recreational opportunities to residents, Phillips says: “They are providing services to the community that they wouldn’t have otherwise.”