Simi Valley Council Debates Plans for Corriganville

SIMI VALLEY — What makes a park a park? Is it benches, picnic areas and rangers on patrol, or the quiet beauty of unspoiled nature?

The Simi Valley City Council wrestled with that issue Monday night, debating a plan to reopen rugged Corriganville Park and acknowledging that hundreds of people already use the place anyway.

After hearing park neighbors complain about traffic, trash and noise problems caused by park users, the council asked two council members who sit on the Rancho Simi Open Space Conservation Agency, which owns the 188-acre park, to draw up more detailed plans for reopening the park.

Neighbor Julie Willingham pleaded with the council: “Don’t open that park before it’s ready to be opened. Don’t open it without parking. Don’t open it without adequate security. We live with it everyday.”

Other neighbors complained of noise from hikers, bicyclists, motorcyclists and other park users from dawn to nightfall.

Opened in 1937 by stuntman Ray “Crash” Corrigan, the Corriganville Movie Ranch’s oak groves and rocky ridges served as backdrop for more than 3,500 movies and TV shows. Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Douglas Fairbanks and Roy Rogers loped along its trails, and Corrigan staged gunfights and stunt shows for the public beginning in 1949, attracting up to 15,000 visitors a day.

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But Corrigan sold the place to Bob Hope in 1966, and the park was closed. Portions of the ranch, including the site of the old movie sets, were purchased by the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District in 1987. Vandals have since torched the last of the frontier-style buildings, and the park has been reclaimed by its natural owners, the chaparral and manzanita, crow and coyote.

New neighborhoods have been built around Corriganville, and more and more people are traveling through the park without authorization, say city staff reports. While there have been no problems so far, at least one small brush fire was blamed on intruders, the report says.

If the conservation agency’s more detailed plans win approval--and funding from the city and other sources--the agency plans to open the park for daytime use only, seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to dusk.

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Before that can happen, the agency wants certain chores accomplished:

* Pruning a row of eucalyptus trees that runs through the park.

* Replacing a footbridge at the “Tarzan Pool.”

* Installing fencing, gates, signs and public park furniture.

* Building a concrete pad with utility hookups for a caretaker, who ideally would live on-site in a house trailer or motor home.

The caretaker would live at the park rent-free in exchange for opening and closing the park gates, picking up litter, emptying trash cans and weeding. And the caretaker would aid park security by staying in touch with rangers from the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District, which oversees the park.

Council members Bill Davis and Barbara Williamson, who sit on the conservation agency’s board, said hiring the caretaker is vital to getting the park opened.

“Let’s face it, people are going back there, and they’re using [the park] anyway,” Williamson said. “We might as well have someone there who can keep an eye on them.”

And Steve Gillum, chairman of the Corriganville Preservation Committee, said, “If there is some type of caretaker or supervisor there, there is going to be less problems for everybody.”

Reopening Corriganville would cost $82,652, plus an annual maintenance cost of $20,701--both to be split evenly by the city and the park district, according to city staff.

In the long run, the district would seek $2.1 million from as-yet undetermined sources to build a visitors center, picnic shelters, restrooms, a caretaker’s house and maintenance building.

Further development could include playgrounds, parking lots, an outdoor amphitheater, horse corral and stable, trails, a pump-fed stream and lake, and a reconstruction of the Fort Apache replica of movie fame.

And finally, if the Rancho Simi Open Space Conservation Agency can raise the money, there is talk of rebuilding the western town that served as backdrop for many of the Lone Ranger, Red Ryder and the Cisco Kid movie serials.

Funding is hazy for rebuilding the western town, according to city staff reports.

However, Davis said, the park should be opened carefully, because a well-run park can help attract grant money for further improvements.