ALPENA– The three campgrounds owned by Alpena County are already half occupied by seasonal campers who pay to spend the entire camping season on a site.

That is good news for the campgrounds and county because it generates large amounts of guaranteed revenue, but it makes it more difficult for campers who only want to spend a few days over a weekend to reserve sites, especially on holidays or other popular weekends.

The county owns Long Lake Park, Beaver Lake Park, and Sunken Lake Park, but the parks, for the most part, aren’t subsidized by the county’s general fund and depend on site rentals to help pay the bills and pay for improvements.

All of the parks have seen an uptick in campers the last several years, but with that, it makes reserving lots that aren’t occupied by seasonable capers a challenge.

Commissioner John Kozlowski, who sits on the Alpena County Parks and Recreation Commission, said the parks are allowed to rent 50% of their lots for seasonal campers. He said lowering that percentage could open more sites for other campers who don’t stay as long, but he isn’t sure how the parks and county would decide to break the news to those who have sites now, that they would lose their site.

“Maybe we could do a lottery,” Kozlowski said. “No matter what we would do, someone would be upset. I think, for this year, we just need to work through this season and look at other options for next season.”

Seasonable campers are not allowed to rent lakeside lots, of which there are few, but the rest is fair game.

The camp managers begin to take reservations for the year after Jan. 2 and do so via phone calls, because the county doesn’t have a system that allows people to reserve sites online.

Kozlowski said an electronic reservation system is something he believes should be considered, so everyone has the same opportunity to get the site of their liking.

“That is a good thing to look into and. Good way to start moving forward,” he said. “As far as reducing the amount of seasonable campers, what is that number ? How do you tell the people they are out? It’s tricky.”

The county charges seasonable campers $1,700 per lot from May 15 through Oct.15. Alpena County residents get a $100 discount.

Earl Martin has been the park manager at Beaver Lake Park for more than a decade and he has seen some of the backlash on social media for people who think there should be fewer seasonable campers. He said he understands the frustration, but running the campground is like a business, and making sure it is financially self-sufficient and not dependent on county funds is a priority. He said the tens of thousands of dollars seasonable campers pay help to cover operational costs and park improvements and repairs.

“The county doesn’t pay for these parks,” he said. “We have to run them like businesses and there are restrictions on how many seasonable campers we can have. We still have sites available, but the longer people wait the chances they are gone increase, especially for holidays like the Fourth of July and Labor Day Weekend.”

Martin said he believes the COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of people who chose to begin camping as a recreational activity. He said people were limited in what they could do early in the pandemic and purchased campers and want to use them now. He said now that many people have the ability to work from home, many are calling campgrounds home as often as they can.

“We have a few of them,” Martin said. “Plus, the campers now are so much nicer than what they were years ago. You can basically pull your house to the park and park it.”

When asked if raising rates for seasonal campers because of the high demand and limited availability is an option, he said that could be something that could be explored, but remained uncommitted for now.

“It’s tough and I get it,” he said. “We will continue to have discussions, but the bottom line is, no matter what we do, some people are going to be unhappy.