Last chance to speak up for TRAILS and Natural PARKLAND in Sonoma County!

Sonoma County is blessed with a spectacular coastline, vast redwood and oak forests, the Bay Area's highest mountain and largest river, and scenic hills and ridges surrounding its cities. Yet we lag far behind other counties by most measures of trails and natural parkland. Time is running out, as each year, we lost more coast, forest, and ridges to development.

Sonoma County has been working since 1995 to create a comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan. Spring 2001 offers the last opportunity for public input into this planning process. The current draft plan directs well over half the acquisition and development cost, and nearly three-quarters of the ongoing management cost, to highly developed, urban-style parks. This is a sea change in the historical role of regional parks, where natural parkland and trails have been the principal focus historically. On the other hand, many trails and natural parks have still not been included in the plan despite repeated enthusiastic requests in public forums and survey.

The Coalition for the Outdoor Recreation Plan (CORP), an association of two dozen hiking, running, biking, equestrian, and environmental groups advocating for trails and natural parklands in Sonoma County, has identified the following critical deficiencies that need to be added to the Outdoor Recreation Plan:

Regional Multi-use Trails

1. Adobe to Adobe Trail. Connect historic Sonoma Plaza with the Petaluma Adobe over south Sonoma Mountain

2. Mark West Trail. Connect Shiloh Regional Park to the proposed Stevenson Trail in the Mayacamas via the proposed Mark West and Porter Creek Regional Parks.

3. Foothills Trail. Link Santa Rosa, Windsor, and Healdsburg via Shiloh and Foothills Regional Parks.

4. McCray Ridge Trail. Connect Windsor and Healdsburg to Austin Creek State Recreation Area via the proposed Russian River Trail, and following the ridge between Sweetwater Springs and Mill Creek Roads.

5. The Cedars Trail. Connect Austin Creek State Recreation Area to the the 1,500-acre BLM "The Cedars" property in the remote interior of Sonoma County.

6. Salmon Creek Trail. Link Salmon Creek State Beach and the Sonoma Coast Trail to Occidental via the proposed Salmon Creek and Finley Creek Preserves.

Sonoma Mountain Parklands

1. Open Space Park on eastern ridge. The 1989 General Plan Land Use map shows a park, not in the ORP, on the eastern ridge overlooking the Sonoma Valley. This natural parkland should be (re-)added to the ORP.

2. Open Space Park near southwestern summit. The 1989 also shows a county park near Lafferty Ranch. Although Petaluma is working to open a city open space park there, the county still has a resopnsibility to acquire another property of at least 300 acres near the southwestern summit overlooking Petaluma for county open space parkland.

3. North Sonoma Mountain Open Space Park. This park northeast of Jack London State Park is proposed in the ORP, but for only 85 acres! A preceding county park plan called for a 500 acre wilderness park at this site. Increase to 500 acres.