U.S. Budget Crisis Shuts Park Center : Channel Islands: All but a dozen employees are sent home. No tours will be conducted.

A federal budget stalemate forced a shutdown of the Channel Islands National Park visitor center on Saturday, idling park employees and disappointing tourists.

The shutdown came after regional officials with the National Park Service ordered a hold Friday on “all non-life-threatening operations,” said Tim Setnicka, chief of operations.

Officials closed the park’s visitor center and administrative offices in Ventura and sent all but a dozen of its 63 employees home to wait out the budget delays. Maintenance workers and rangers who conduct educational tours have been told not to report for work until further notice, Setnicka said.

However, rangers who live on the park’s five Channel Islands and are responsible for law enforcement will continue to work, Setnicka said. Private boat operators will still take visitors to the islands, but no rangers will guide the tours.

The U.S. government pulled the plug on all but the most critical operations at midnight Friday after President Bush refused to sign emergency legislation to maintain federal spending after Congress rejected a bipartisan budget accord.

For most county residents, it caused few problems Saturday, because most federal agencies were closed for the weekend.

“There’s nothing to do except to stand by. We’re just waiting for orders,” Setnicka said.

Civil servants who work at federally owned parks and military installations in the county are also waiting for word about the budget. An estimated 8,000 people who work on military bases were expected to be affected by the stalemate. Military spokesmen were unavailable for comment Saturday.

Rangers at another national park, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, were not on duty to take visitors on scheduled nature hikes. The information center, usually open Saturday, was closed.

At Channel Islands National Park, employees are scheduled to be off until at least Tuesday because of the Columbus Day holiday, Setnicka said. If the budget stalemate continues, officials will have to evaluate what course of action to take, he said.

On Saturday, tourists were puzzled by a sign posted on two doors of the visitor center informing them that “due to a lack of federal budget, Channel Islands National Park visitor center will be closed until further notice.”

Ron Wheat of Calabasas said he and a friend, Shelly Homa of Omaha, drove nearly an hour to the visitor center in Ventura, only to be confronted by locked doors.

“We expected it to be open when we got here. I brought her here because she’s visiting from out of town, and it’s closed. It’s kind of disappointing,” Wheat said.

Steve and Judy Turner of La Crescenta said they knew about the budget stalemate but decided to take a vacation anyway.

“I was very surprised it was closed. We thought they would just cut back services, not close everything down,” Steve Turner said. “We were planning to go to the Sequoias on Monday to do some backpacking, but we’ll have to see what happens.”

The visitor center contains maps and information about the five Channel Islands. Programs conducted by park rangers on Saturdays and Sundays were canceled.

Each year, nearly 300,000 people come to the visitor center and to the scenic Channel Islands, including Anacapa, San Miguel, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands, located off the Ventura County coast.