By Kathy Chouteau
Community members heading out to East Bay Regional Parks Sat., June 19 will have their park entry and some other fees waived as part of a Park District partnership with Outdoor Afro to commemorate Juneteenth. On that day in June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 250,000 enslaved black Americans in Texas were informed of their freedom.
Park District fees that will be waived on Juneteenth include park entrance, parking, dogs, horses, boat launching and fishing, according to district officials. The fee waiver won’t apply to swimming, camping and reservable picnic facilities (due to COVID-19 capacity restrictions), district concessions such as the Tilden Merry-Go-Round and Redwood Valley Railway steam train, among others and state fees. Fishing licenses and watercraft inspections for invasive mussels are among the state fees that won’t be waived Saturday.
Robert Doyle, general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District for the past decade and a fixture at the district for more than four decades, is retiring this week.
Robert Doyle. (Photo credit: EBRPD)
Robert Doyle, the general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) who has worked in the district for 47 years, is retiring at the end of this month, the district announced.
During Doyle’s GM tenure, the EBRPD has more than doubled in size in acreage, parks and trails. The district’s acreage has grown from 59,689 to 125,186, making EBRPD the nation’s largest regional park system. Locally, Doyle was noted for helping to win a 20-year battle along the Richmond shoreline that included the creation of Dotson Family Marsh near Point Pinole, and for incrementally closing gaps in the San Francisco Bay Trail, among other accomplishments.