DAMIAN MULINX/dmulinix@chinookobserver.com The view from the Bruceport County Park of the Willapa Bay is a spectacular one.

SOUTH BEND — Pacific County continues to stretch its parks budget while expanding operations at its busiest facility.

Bruceport Park is open year ‘round now. The facility on U.S. 101 between Bay Center and South Bend is the No. 1 county park and has seven full RV hookups and room for tent camping and day use as well.

Parks and Fair Manager Dotsi Graves said the county operated the park through December to draw hunters.

“It’s nice for them, if you come from Seattle to go hunting, where are you going to stay?” she asked. “All the Weyerhaeuser and Rayonier lands have the gates across them. Where you used to be able to go up a logging road and camp, you can’t do it any more without a special permit.”

It worked out well, so the plan is to keep the park open all year.

“You get a lot of the [bicyclists] and motorcycles that come through, and they need a place to stay, and they’re always looking,” she said. “So we just decided that we’d keep it open, because people will use it if it’s open.”

Park hosts Jim and Janelle Long live at the park. They were formerly at Bush Pioneer Park in Bay Center. The county is looking for a host to move into the Bay Center park.

“We’ve had such good success with that,” she said. “There’s security, it’s clean, and it’s nice when you come into our park to have somebody to greet you.”

Thieves hit Bruceport hard in early 2013, stealing copper wire, pipes — even a water heater. The damage cost the county thousands in an already stretched budget.

Camp hosts at Bruceport collect the fees and keep them except for sales and lodging tax, which the county turns over to the state.

The arrangement means the county doesn’t have to pay the hosts and it provides them incentive to take care of visitors and keep the park looking good, Graves said.

Because of lower volume, the Bush Pioneer Park hosts receive a stipend from the county.

Graves would like to do some paving at Bruceport and replace the restrooms, but it’s not in the budget.

“Restrooms are like $130,000, and I don’t have it,” she said. “A restroom is something we have to do eventually, but we have to figure out how to afford it.”

Parks is part of the Department of Public Works.

The 2015 Parks budget is $49,278 including half of Graves’ salary, park hosts at Bay Center, maintenance, a separate contract with the Port of Chinook to maintain Chinook Park, and utilities at all county parks.

In addition to Bruceport and Bay Center, the county has Chinook Park, Morehead Park in Nahcotta and Hangman’s Park in South Bend.

“Not a lot of people know about [Hangman’s],” Graves said. “Mostly it gets used by local people up there.”

Morehead is the 4H camp, but the county also rents it out to other groups as well.

“It needs some work,” she said. “I’m in the process of trying to get that back up to shape. We’ve got some buildings that need to be repaired and taken down, and we need to repair a few things.”

The camp has been run by 4H for the past few years; the agreement ends in June, but the county took over at the first of the year.

Morehead has eight cabins and a large kitchen that needs some work. Four buildings have to be demolished because they’re not safe, she said.

The camp’s facilities can be used for group gatherings such as football teams and band camps, she said.

“We’re open for anything as long as they know, right now it’s kind of rustic,” Graves said. “We’d love to get it used more.”

The biggest group she has using the camp is 25, but it can handle 50, she said.

Keeping the parks looking nice is a challenge; Graves has a staff of one — herself.

Mowing is an issue. Parks have to share mowers. The county has a caretaker who lives at Morehead, but there’s no mower for her to use, she said.

“There’s not a lot of money for the parks, so I try to rely on the hosts as much as I can and do as much as I can myself, because I don’t have a lot of outside help.”

She hopes to encourage people to use the parks.

“That’s our main goal with all of our parks, is that people use them and the fairgrounds,” she said.

Graves divides her time between the fair and the parks. She sees great potential in the fairgrounds.

“We’re trying to use the Fairgrounds more than four days a year,” she said. “Because that’s silly; that doesn’t make sense.”

More activities at the fairgrounds keeps maintenance going continually, she said. It prevents things from getting run down.

This year the fairgrounds will be used for horse shows, cattle judging and even weddings, she said.

“I’m excited about the weddings,” Graves said. “We have one in August just before the fair, so as we’re getting ready for the fair, we’ll be getting ready for the wedding; it’ll get us ready earlier.”

A 4H group regularly meets at the fairgrounds, and the county rents out space for hunters to camp in the fall.

The county will have a surplus sale/auction and swap meet at the fairgrounds June 26 through 28. All county departments, not just Public Works, will be invited to sell surplus items.

In the meantime, Graves will continue plugging away at the long to-do list in her office. That includes creating a website for the county parks. It may have to wait awhile.

“I’m also learning how to fix my own lawnmowers,” she said.