PARKS OFFICIALS SCRAP PROPOSAL FOR MOBIL BEACH.

Byline: David Greenberg Daily News Staff Writer

Acknowledging that the Parks and Recreation Department's initial plans for Mobil piers beach are not financially feasible, the recently hired department's director said Tuesday that the idea has been scrapped.

John Johnston said his office would not spend the $100,000 pledged by Mobil Oil Corp. for parking spaces adjacent to the beach, along with on-site bathroom facilities, trash services and a park ranger.

``It was a concept,'' Johnston told the Ventura County Board of Supervisors. ``It was never worked out.''

Meanwhile, preliminary plans submitted by advocates for a $650,000 surfers' park remain on hold while organizers search for private and state funding, according to Gary Ross, president of the Coastal Preservation Research Foundation, a surfing advocacy group.

Last year, then-manager Blake Boyle of the parks department estimated that revenues from parking fees and concessions from the plan that was scrapped would reach $54,000 annually while maintenance costs would total $52,000 a year.

Ross and other foundation members opposed that plan, claiming it would disrupt the area's tropical nature.

``I'd rather see nothing built than something inappropriate,'' he said.

He also said Boyle's plans were not feasible because construction of the bathrooms could cost up to $87,000.

Officials of the financially strapped parks office have said they will not recommend any project that is not self-sufficient.

Supervisors unanimously supported Johnston's recommendation to scrap the Mobil proposal - which included space for 110 cars and 10 recreational vehicles directly behind the beach - and to ask the company to place its $100,000 into a state trust until a better plan is created.

Since the 1930s, the state has leased the nearly mile-long stretch of the beach to Mobil - about 10 miles north of Ventura Harbor - for its offshore drilling operations.

The oil giant, which stopped pumping from the site a couple of years ago, recently dismantled its two dilapidated piers.

Although stopping short of saying he would push county officials to ask for a larger sum from Mobil, Ross said he was disappointed the company offered so little after pumping what he believes to be hundreds of millions of dollars of crude petroleum from the ocean floor.