The Sonoma County Independent's
"Usual Suspects" Column Reproduced with permission Happy Trails? Open space and public access have not always been sanguine bedfellows in Sonoma County, with residents complaining that, while gazing upon green fields is lovely, the point is to be able to walk through them as well. County land preservation agencies have come under fire for spending tax dollars on conservation easements that keep land from being developed, but allow little public access. But that could be changing. The county Regional Parks Department in conjunction with the Sonoma County Water Agency and the Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, is hoping that their 300-page two-volume outdoor recreation plan will quell criticism by paving the way to more publicly owned accessible parkland. The county's nine-member Citizens Advisory Committee met this week to discuss the long-awaited draft version of the plan, which has been nearly five years in the making. At a cost of $91 million, the plan proposes adding 21 county open space and regional recreation areas by the year 2010 -- an increase in acreage from 4,125 to 9,769 -- as well as additional state parklands, community and neighborhood parks, and bike and multi-use trails. But don't expect new parklands anytime soon. The last time the Citizens Advisory Committee met was in August, and the committee spent the first 30 minutes of this week's meeting sorting out their next move, which is -- surprise, surprise -- more meetings. "It's going to take some time," committee member Pierre Joske, general manager of the Open Space District, says of the process. "I think we'll be here at Christmas." Everyone seems to agree that more parkland is a good idea for Sonoma County, even though the plan calculates a "surplus" of open space in several communities, primarily because school fields and playgrounds are included in the existing amount of open space in the county -- a statistical strategy that does not sit well with committee members. Committee member Caryl Hart questions the concept that school land is somehow the same as a county park: "They're just not the same." Attorney and former county Supervisor Eric Koenigshofer agrees: "I went over to the park at noon the other day to play Over the Line and there were a bunch of damn kids there," he jokes. "Schools are there, but they are not available 100 percent of the time." A "bigger deficiency," according to committee member Ray Peterson, of Sonoma County Farm Trails, is that the draft plan looks only at the open space needs of communities with at least 1,000 residents. "We've left out a whole lot of population," he says referring to the numerous sparsely populated enclaves in the county. Environmental planning consultant Nancy Dakin counters that the proposals in the draft plan respond to what residents want rather than relying on demographics. According to the plan, the public's top priority is unimproved natural open space, with hiking trails a close second. Seventy-five percent favor funding acquisition and maintenance of new parklands, and residents apparently are ready to spend their own money to get them: "It is likely that an assessment of between $10 and $20 per year per household could be initiated with little resistance from the community at large," the plan purports. Other sources of funding include sales taxes approved by voters in 1990, easement fees, developers fees, and local park bonds. The outdoor recreation plan will come in handy for the Agriculture Preservation and Open Space District, which is revising its own acquisition policies in the midst of criticism over public access issues and failure to secure the coveted 900-acre west county Bohemia Ranch, sold to a private investor after more than two years of negotiations with the county. That acquisition campaign culminated last month in a high-profile drum circle and demonstration outside of the supervisors' chambers when Hart's famous hubby, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, lured a gaggle of Bay Area news media. "Since we have belabored the issues of citizen access, it's our hope that this document will become the cornerstone of their acquisition policy," says Philip Sales, park planning and design administrator for the Regional Parks District. The Citizens Advisory Committee will meet with the county Board of Supervisors in July to discuss policy issues related to the recreation plan. Sometime after that, the county will hold six meetings to gather public input on the plan. Trail Mix Hiking trails are pretty much a no-brainer public asset, a win-win for those who live among ever-increasing development, traffic, and growth. Right? Apparently not, at least in Sonoma County. Farmers and a vocal group of landowners -- including Petaluma millionaire Peter Pfendler of the Lafferty and Moon ranches swap debacle -- are dead set against giving Sonoma County residents and visitors access to significant publicly owned lands. And Sonoma County Counsel Steven Woodside has issued a legal opinion that seems to give the anti-access camp exactly the ammunition it needs to keep people cordoned off from some of the county's most beautiful vistas. "There's a drive to see folks kept out of rural areas," says Will Stapp, executive director of the Coalition for the Outdoor Recreation Plan. "Sonoma County is absolutely in the Stone Age in terms of outdoor recreation and trails." The county's 1989 General Plan mandates a standard of 20 acres of recreational open space per thousand residents. So far, Sonoma County has achieved little more than half that amount, ranking No. 8 out of the nine Bay Area counties. Only urbanized San Francisco is further down on the list. Marin County, by contrast, has 149 acres of open space per thousand residents, with all of its 35,127 acres boasting public access -- by far the worst percentage in the Bay Area. In June, the long-awaited and voluminous county Outdoor Recreation Plan was unveiled, outlining a public preference for unimproved natural open space and hiking trails. The draft plan proposed an additional 21 county openspace and regional recreational areas that would increase the county's accessible lands to almost 10,000 acres. But a supplement to the plan, dated Aug. 12, indicates a move toward using the county's Agriculture Preservation and Open Space District's tax monies for community and neighborhood parks close to town, with ball fields and courts, rather than purchasing trail easements for hiking and "passive" use open space. The Sonoma County Farm Bureau certainly would applaud a shift away from trails. While farmers seem sanguine about selling conservation easements to the district, which keeps the property from being developed, the idea of allowing access to isolated publicly owned lands via trails through their lands is a different story. Trails are incompatible use with agricultural lands, according to a Sonoma County Farm Bureau memo, because of liability, vandalism, fire danger, orchard contamination, and pesticide hazards. In addition, according to a 1997 memo from the Farm Bureau to the county Board of Supervisors, trail easements would decrease property values: "Farmers will generally be unwilling to purchase and develop the land for agricultural uses given the conflicts associated with public use." Although Pfendler's attorney, Stephen Butler, did not return phone calls, his position is clear in a 1998 letter to the Citizens Advisory Committee: In the 1989 General Plan, "trails were deleted in agricultural areas and draft open space policies were modified to reflect the then-existing community sentiment that agriculture is the lifeblood of Sonoma County and its stability should not be undermined by inconsistent land uses." Last month county Counsel Woodside issued an opinion that essentially agreed with Butler's. The updated draft plan excises 12 new trails, totaling 130 miles, that are not part of the General Plan, including access to the much-contested Sonoma Mountain Ridge and a connector between Austin Creek and Lake Sonoma. Inclusion of the trails would likely bring threats of legal action, and the supervisors, says Stapp, are likely to sidestep the thorny trails issue by pushing for neighborhood parks instead. Philip Sales, planning and design administrator of the county's Regional Parks Department, says that the draft plan provides a balance of use. "We've had a lot of good dialog on trail issues. We feel we have good representation from both sides of the plan the way it is now," he says. "There are always people who will see it as a half-full or half-empty glass." Meanwhile, the Sierra Club's Carol Vellutini is asking trail enthusiasts to come equipped with hiking and backpacking gear to an Aug. 24 Board of Supervisors workshop on the draft Outdoor Recreation Plan. "It's black and white what's needed. We have a growing population, and we don't have enough recreation areas. That's why Annadel (State Park) is being loved to death," she says. "Land is becoming more expensive and going into private ownership. Unless we get (trails) in this plan, it's going to be lost." |
