OC Parks now Free to Seniors, Veterans and Disabled

It is now free for seniors, veterans and the disabled to go to the three county maintained parks in Oconee County. This week, the Oconee County Council passed a budget amendment allowing free access to the parks for these individuals, explains Oconee County Parks, Recreation and Tourism Director Phil Shirley. “We have a parking fee when you come into the county parks that helps us maintain our grounds, but you can buy a county park pass, an annual pass, that gets you in from the year of purchase. It is $25 for residents and there was a discounted $15 pass for seniors, veterans and disabled. The budget amendment that was passed this week did away with the $15 pass and we can now allow that to be free to seniors, veterans and disabled people. Now we still want to manage how many of those passes we are giving out and how many folks are visiting our parks, so we would still like them to come in and get a park pass. They will show their identification and we’ll give them a pass that will be good for a year and every time they come through in their car, they can move it from one car to the other and whoever is in their car with them will get free access into the park system. It will have an expiration date on it but it is free, so when it up, come back in and we will give you a new pass and put a new sticker on it that way we can manage how many we are using so that we can go back and share the good news of how people are taking advantage of it. We look forward to hopefully getting more people into the parks that maybe didn’t feel like they could come out, so we hope to take advantage of that and show what we have.” Those wanting a pass are encouraged to stop by the Oconee County Parks, Recreation and Tourism Office at South Cove County Park in Seneca.