Big news for us at LandPaths, including those of you who have followed our work since 1997! On Tuesday, an eight year-old legal stalemate over the McCrea trail on Sonoma Mountain was resolved. Here you can find details about this future section of Bay Area Ridge Trail, including comments prepared by LandPaths Executive Director Craig Anderson to the County Board of Supervisors and the Press Democrat article covering the deal.
Comments prepared by LandPaths Executive Director Craig Anderson to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Thank you Chairman Kelly, Supervisors for this opportunity to speak. I'd like to focus my comments on a series of acknowledgements regarding this trail, both as a 4-year project on the ground and as the legal matter that it has become for the past 8 years.
First, I'd like to acknowledge the passing of time and in many ways a sea change. In 1997 when Tom McCrea signed an agreement with LandPaths that gave us the opportunity to begin working with our key partners to build and steward a new segment of Bay Area Ridge Trail on the top of Sonoma Mountain - it was at a time where, to paraphrase the musical Oklahoma, "oh the farmer and the hiker were not necessarily the best of friends." From my perspective, there were deep divisions between the recreational users and the farming community. End goals seemed anything but convergent.
In these 12 years we've seen the County Ag Preservation and Open Space District focused on balancing the needs of our whole community - evidenced by more parks and funding for their operation, habitat and watershed, greenbelts between cities and projects focusing on our local agricultural operators. I would go as far to say that hikers and horsefolk, bikers and urban walkers are all feeling the benefit of the Ag & Open Space District's work...and part of that benefit being the protection of habitat and watershed in places that have no trails, and support for our local agricultural operators so that they can thrive and grow local food...which is vital to our quality of life.
We must acknowledge members of our community that have helped bring this matter to where it is today:
· Eliot families - both generations - that have donated easements across their property for the betterment of habitat protection and passive public use by providing a place to complete this trai
· Other private land owners - including some key to this settlement in the Valley of the Moon that have been willing to consider viewing the public as volunteer land stewards and good neighbors willing to keep an eye out for them
· The Bay Area Ridge Trail Council - Dee Swanhuyser in particular - in partnering with LandPaths and State Parks and the private landowners on the mountain to get this thing done
· Sonoma County Counsel under Steven Woodside's leadership, without whom the Ridge Trail Council and LandPaths in all likelihood would have been unable to address the issue of our almost finished trail being taken from us in 2001
· Supervisor Valerie Brown and her staff for working with County Counsel to listen to the neighbors within the direct area of the trail
· Les Perry and his team in being open and fair to consider the compromise that provides benefits to habitat, public use and private property security
· The hundreds of people from around the VOM and Sonoma County that came to build the sections of trail in Jack London State Park that lead up to the Sonoma Mountain Trail...hikers, equestrian groups, mountain bikers, birders, and local HS students.
I don't want to shy away from the hard issue here...as I want to acknowledge you all on the Board and the decision you are making that includes removing some acres towards the bottom of the property from the conservation easement. Leaning on my pre-LandPaths life as an ecologist - I would like to state emphatically that what's being given up in terms of removing a set number of acres from the easement in exchange for granting ownership of a new trail parcel at the top of the mountain is good for the public in terms of access, I believe good for private landowners in terms of their privacy and property values, and good for habitat and watershed alike.
My colleague and our friend Adina Merenlender of UC Berkeley authored a report in 2005 to weigh this balance, and in her executive summary she writes ...
"The proposed change provides added protection to the higher elevation portion of the property and to Sonoma Mountain by preventing the expansion of exurban development into the existing core habitat of Sonoma Mountain, and protects a designated greenbelt which provides an important viewshed for Sonoma Valley. In addition, the length of roads and related environmental impacts associated with impervious surfaces would be reduced by developing less steep terrain at lower elevation. "
I would also acknowledge LandPaths community supporters -- who have continued to fund our various programs and projects throughout the county that connect people to land...and at the same time being forgiving to both LandPaths and its partners for the time it has taken for this matter to be settled seemingly without any public word from us.
I acknowledge the nearly 30 families that made up LandPaths' "Sonoma Mountain Volunteer Patrol" in 2000 and early 2001. They kept an eye on the trail as it was being built; and in many ways they became LandPaths first experience in piloting a concept we call "community-powered parks" - a concept that has led to the management of the Willow Creek addition to Sonoma Coast State Park and soon other parks in this budget-lean time when we must rely on our citizenry.
Last, I want to acknowledge the trust and partnership placed in us nonprofits by our Ag Preservation and Open Space District, California State Parks and the State Coastal Conservancy...as these public agencies recognize our role as capacity builders. In the past twelve years LandPaths has brought over 4 million dollars to the Ag Preservation and Open Space District's properties in the form of state, national, local foundation and individual donations...4 million for trail and park development and programs...and those dollars being above and beyond county contracts or county tax dollars and not including volunteer time. Adding up the combined total of these non-public dollars from our nonprofit siblings Sonoma Land Trust, Bay Ridge Trail, Laguna Foundation, Sonoma Ecology Center and others, there is hope that we can continue to protect and steward our lands by working with our community!
This trail has taken a village to get to this point...and my hope is that the many fine individuals and organizations that have supported the effort will be here to work with the county and state to see it through. Thank you.
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That said, please know that a very similar situation: a state park threatened because of budget cuts - was why LandPaths was born in 1997. In fact, it is during these times that LandPaths begins to swim with broad tail strokes in order to provide for parks to stay open, creeks to be stewarded, and school groups to have access to the land outside their classroom walls. We do this in several ways: 
Whether Annadel is ultimately threatened with immediate closure or not, we welcome your ideas, suggestions of partnerships and other input per how we can all do right by our State Parks in Sonoma County - so that they not only continue to be available to all - but actually thrive! 
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