San Diego and Santa Barbara Reps Chosen
Two
new nominees I didn't mention previously are Andy Darragh and Chuck Anderson.
Andy is very active in trail work and access issues in San Diego as
President of SBMBA and Chuck Anderson does the same in Santa Barbara as leader
of SBMTV.
We welcome these two very capable riders and trail advocates to the Warrior's Society.
Arroyo Trabuco Bike Trail Controversy
By Tam "Speaks For Warrior's" Pham
I attended the meeting in October from 6 p.m. until about 9 p.m..
I met fellow Society member Ken Rands there.
Here's a quick summary of what took place.
The meeting opened with Dan Kelly (representing the Rancho Mission Viejo entity) and was predominantly a discussion of how they've satisfied the EIR requirements for proceeding with construction of the golf course. This was in response to complaints filed against them by various parties on the issues of (among others) downstream flooding, reckless development practices and destruction of wildlife habitat. Overall, I thought that they had a good case for construction of the golf course.
Dan Kelly's initial presentation was then followed by a lengthy presentation
from a San Juan Capistrano resident who seems to have major objections to the
completeness of the EIR for the golf course.
Although his issues seemed valid, his argument seemed mostly unfounded.
Discussion of the Ladera Trail then came
up during the public comment portion of the meeting.
About five or six equestrian-oriented speakers went up to speak on the
issue, including Tom Anderson, who represented the Equestrian Coalition.
Everyone basically pointed out that the existing "interim" trail is
not suitable for use by equestrians, especially with the 30% grade.
When it came my turn to speak, I went up and introduced myself as a
representative of the Warrior's Society and that we in turn represent the
interest of thousands of mountain bikers.
I mentioned that the current trail is not suitable for use by all trail
users, especially equestrians, and that we request that the Rancho Mission Viejo
Company follow through on the original plan to re-route the "interim" trail
along Trabuco Creek.
Having the trail re-routed would make it suitable for use by bikers,
hikers and equestrians alike.
After everyone spoke, Dan Kelly came back up to address the issues brought up by the public. The downstream flooding issue was first, and then the issue of the trail followed. He said that they had been working
with the county regarding trail planning and that it wasn't really an
appropriate topic for this city meeting. Basically, he sidestepped out of the
issue.
Unfortunately, the mayor (who didn't seem to know much about trails and
such) and city council members agreed with him and pretty much brought the issue
to an end.
They did stress to Dan that although the trail issue wasn't subject to
this meeting, they requested that Rancho Mission Viejo take into consideration
the various concerns raised by the public.
That was pretty much it.
Afterwards, I went up to Dan Kelly and personally introduced myself.
I spoke with him about the need for this trail to be suitable for use by
as many users as possible, including equestrians.
He didn't seem to object to that at all (and was actually pretty
friendly).
He said that there were a couple of issues that needed to be worked out.
The first is that the county (Tom Wilson) has essentially already agreed
to keep the trail the way it is.
The second is that if the trail were to be re-routed, there's
potentially much opposition from the environmentalists who want to preserve the
area the way it is (and not even have a golf course).
He also mentioned that the re-routed trail would also require use of an
additional five miles along Trabuco Creek that was never discussed at all
before.
I asked him who we should talk to if we want to have further discussion
on this topic, and he said to work with Kevin Thomas, the new Director of
Harbors, Beaches and Parks.
At that point I thanked him for his time.
All in all, I think that if anything the public speakers brought awareness to the city regarding the trail issue. As for the effectiveness, that's not so clear since the city was content to let it be a county issue.
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