The first public meeting related to the Outdoor Recreation Plan in over a year will take place on Thursday, August 28, 2003 at 6:00 p.m. at the Permit & Resource Management Hearing Room, 2550 Ventura Avenue, Santa Rosa.

The notice says, "Regional Parks is also interested in comments from property and other interested parties regarding what should be included in the EIR." The county contact person for information is Michelle Julene, (707) 565-3962.

Urge State and local officials to help open Lafferty Park and to take advantage of the Mitsui trail offer to connect it over Sonoma Mountain to Jack London Park!

Bonnie Mitsui, owner of a 630-acre ranch adjacent to Lafferty Park, covering much of the top part of Sonoma Mountain, has offered to donate a trail easement across her ranch to the State of California, provided the state assists in opening Lafferty Park to the public, and endeavors to connect Lafferty via her trail to Jack London State Historic Park on the northeastern slope of the mountain. See the Friends of Lafferty Park website for more information, and write letters to key public officials and newspapers.

Urge the Open Space District to acquire Fitch Mountain for parkland!

Sonoma County's Open Space District has an extraordinary opportunity to acquire one of our most scenic and recognizable landmarks for public parkland. The top 258 acres of Fitch Mountain, on the edge of Healdsburg, is for sale. Here is what you can do to help:

• Circulate this petition and mail it to the address at the bottom. (Note: The petition is in RTF format, which can be read by most word processors and cannot carry macro viruses.)

• Contact County Supervisors (who are also Directors of the Open Space District), and North County Supervisor Paul Kelley in particular, to urge acquisition of Fitch Mountain for parkland.

• Contact Friends of Fitch Mountain at (707) 431-1301 (Royce), or rmeyerott@earthlink.net

For more information, see this background page with photos.

Taking Action by Supervisorial District

The task of delivering public access to Sonoma County's open space ultimately falls on the county supervisors. They will only do that if they hear strong public support.

Let them know the county should emphasize a county-wide network of trails and open space parks in the outdoor recreation plan, include policies to facilitate achieving these goals, and increase regional parks' budget to open and manage these new areas.

Click on your area of residence in the map below to go to a "taking action" page for your supervisorial district:

District 1 Sonoma Valley and eastern Santa Rosa (Rincon and Bennet Valleys), east county.
District 2 Petaluma and Two Rock Valleys, Cotati, part of Rohnert Park, south county.
District 3 Central Santa Rosa and most of Rohnert Park.
District 4 Northwest SR, Fulton, Windsor, north county.
District 5 Southwest SR, lower Russian River, west county including the coast.

Write letters to Newspapers!

Join up with CORP

As a coalition of organizations, CORP does not have individual members. But if you belong to a kindred organization, we would be delighted to have you join us.

Alternatively, consider joining one (or more) of the organizations which are already part of CORP.