Chris Coursey column published in the Press Democrat Friday, August 20, 1999 Park plan treads on rocky path When Sonoma County supervisors arrive Tuesday evening for a special session on outdoor recreation, they'll be greeted by hikers in boots and backpacks, bikers in helmets and spandex, perhaps even a few riders on horseback in front of the county Admiistration Center. But the colorful crowd won't be there celebrate the county's Outdoor Recreation Plan, a document that outlines an ambitious program to add more than $100 million worth of parks, trails and play facilities to neighborhoods and backwoods throughout the county. Instead, they'll be there to protest that what's in the plan isn't enough. And they'll be encountered by farmers and ranchers on hand to tell supervisors that the document goes too far. This is Sonoma County's most high-profile playground squabble. While county officials would like to talk about the plan's many positive points -- almost 300 miles of new trails, thousands of acres of new parks and increased access to the coast and Russian River -- the plan has been stalled by a debate over the impact of trails on agricultural lands. "We've spent a lot of time dealing with a couple of constituencies," says Hal Beck, a member of the citizens cpmmitiee that drafted the plan. "In the process we may have lost the big picture." The two constituencies to which Beck refers are trail users, who want an expanded countywide network of trails added to the plan, and agricultural landowners, who oppose trails that skirt their vineyards and pastures. The two viewpoints clash most visibly on
Sonoma Mountain. Lafferty Ranch, the Sonoma Trails advocates want a trail in the plan that connects the Petaluma Adobe and Jack London state parks by way of Lafferty. Public workshops have identified that route as the top trail priority in the county. But Sonoma Mountain landowners -- the same landowners who are fighting Petaluma's plans to open Lafferty to public access -- don't want Lafferty even mentioned in the outdoor plan. They've hired lawyers and political and planning consultants to squelch any inclusion of the property. And they've succeeded -- to a point. The trail itself was deleted from the plan last year on a split vote of the advisory committee. But included in the latest draft is a sentence that suggests: "Encourage the city of Petaluma to develop a preserve at Lafferty Ranch with trails." In a letter to the committee, landowners' attorney Stephen Butler calls that sentence "an insult to the agricultural community" and promises that its inclusion "will hang like an albatross around the neck of the recreation plan." Supervisors on Tuesday night will have to decide if the plan is strong enough to wear that albatross. The Lafferty issue overshadows the long-term impacts of the plan, and it takes attention away from what may be the most intriguing portion of Tuesday's meeting. The session will begin with a presentation from County Counsel Steven Woodside, who will advise supervisors about how much leeway they have to spend Open Space District tax funds on recreation. While his opinion notes that Open Space District funds can only be used on projects identified in the 1989 general plan, Woodside writes that the plan's language describing those projects is very broad. And the ballot measure that authorized the open space tax is "unclear whether sales tax revenues may be used for development or operation" of parks and is open to interpretation. The supervisors, writes Woodside, "have the responsibility for those interpretations." The interpreters begin interpreting at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Call Coursey at 707-521-5223 or e-mail ccoursey@pressdemo.com
Chris Coursey column published in the Press Democrat Friday, September 3, 1999 Open gates might mend the fences The phrase jumped, out of Sunday s Page 1 story about the rush to develop vineyards In Sonoma County before new planting rules take effect on Oct. 1. "We didn't do enough to protect our forests and streams from these industrial v!neyards," said Lynn Hamilton, former Sebastopol councilwoman and west-county political activist. Industrial vineyards. What has happened? It wasn't so long ago that vineyards were seen as pastoral landscapes, bucolic vistas, welcome alternatives to the march of subdivisions through the valleys and up the hills of Sonoma County. Now, seemingly overnight, the rows of vines that define "Wine Country" are described as "industrial grape-growing areas" by a resident of Freestone in ihat same Page 1 article. And the antipathy is spreading. "Ten years ago, having vineyards around your property was considered beneficial," says Chris Benziger of Benziger Family Winery in Glen Ellen. "But that tune has changed, definitely." Part of it can be blamed on the wine industry's phenomenal success. A segment of Americans always will resent big business and the wealthy people who control it, and in Sonoma County the wine business and its leaders are the most visible examples of money and power. Part of it can be blamed on the sheer ubiquity of vineyards. Almost 50,000 acres of Sonoma County are planted in grapes, with a couple thousand more being cleared each year. When grapes go in, grassland, wildlife and often trees disappear. And part of it is the industry's own public-relations missteps, from high-profile tree-cutting and planting on hillsides to this week's ugly incident in Sebastopol, where a dying man was asked to leave his home while the new .vineyard next door was fumigated with methyl bromide. "Agriculture needs to wake up to the fact that we are no longer in the saddle," says Ruth Waltenspiel, who with her husband, Ron, grows grapes and dried fruits at their Timber Crest Farms in Dry Creek Valley. "This county is changing." But it hasn't yet changed completely. While relations are strained, there isn't an entrenched "us vs. them" split between city folks and farm folks in Sonoma County. And there doesn't have to be. Still, some fence-mending may be in order. And perhaps the best way for the ag industry to mend fences is to open up some of its gates. After pesticides and tree-clearing, the biggest beef the county's environmental community has with agriculture is the industry's opposition to trails. Led by Peter Pfendler and other Sonoma Mountain landowners opposed to public use of Lafferty Ranch, and represented by the Farm Bureau on citizens committees, the industry has delayed and watered down the county's long-running plans for trails and other outdoor recreation. But farmers are by no means unanimous in saying "trails and agriculture don't mix." In fact, some believe that allowing the public on their land is the best way to soften the hard feelings forming in the community. "We have to stop viewing 'the public' as evil hubcap stealers," says Waltenspiel, who grants permission to these who ask to hike and ride on her property. ''They are our customers." Allowing those customers access to the land on which her products grow generates good will for her business, she says. "Our experience has been positive." Benziger, whose vineyards abut trails at Jack London State Park, agrees. "Instead of bunkering down, I believe our industry should be opening up the gates and inviting neighbors to see what we're doing," he says. As the suburbs and the vineyards creep closer together, It becomes more importnat than ever for farmers to understand that hikers aren't looking to tear out their crops, and for suburbanites to understand that agriculture still is what keeps Sonoma County from becoming Santa Clara County. Call Coursey at 707-521-5223 or e-mail ccoursey@pressdemo.com |
