HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/17/2020 Item 11, Krejsa
Wilbanks, Megan
From:Richard J. Krejsa <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Please Remove Consent Agenda Item #11 and Schedule it for future Action Agenda
Attachments:RJK to City Council 17 Nov 2020.pdf
To the City Council,
Please read my comments enclosed in the attached pdf file. Also, please let me know if you have
received this letter.
Thank you,
Dr. Richard J. Krejsa
SLO Resident since 1968
1
To: The SLO Mayor and City Council
Greg Hermann
Robert Hill
From: Dr. Richard J. Krejsa Date: 16 Nov 2020
Subject: Item #11 on Consent Agenda for Tuesday, November 17, 2020. “Authorize a
Temporary Extension of Open Space Evening Hours of Use Pilot Program.”
Dear Council Members,
I was made aware of tonight’s 17 November City Council Meeting’s Consent Agenda
Item #11 only late Sunday evening. I cannot attend today’s meeting because I must
undergo an important diagnostic medical procedure very early on Wednesday morning,
18 November.
I hereby enter my protest of City Staff’s placing of this important item on the Consent
Agenda of tonight’s (17 Nov 2020) City Council Meeting. I hereby request that this item
be removed from the Consent Agenda and placed on the Action Agenda of a future City
Council meeting and made open for full and adequate citizen exposure and input.
I’m certain that the public has many more comments and opinions regarding the existing
negative environmental impacts of the nighttime hike and bike activity on CSLNR trails.
I know that I have so I will offer only a few comments at this time:
1. Consent Agenda Item #11 seeks Council’s Approval of a Resolution (Attachments
A & B) adopting an Addendum to a previously adopted Mitigated Negative Declaration
(MND) without providing the previously promised 2-year “summary report.” This, I
believe, is inappropriate for many reasons, some of which follow (below).
2. “Staff have not yet had time or the opportunity to prioritize the preparation of a
concluding two year summary report (emphasis mine) due to the onset of the COVID-19
pandemic and associated resource impacts while staff continue to serve in their capacity
as Disaster Service Workers; this notably includes the Sustainability & Natural Resources
Official’s role as Liaison Officer within the City’s Emergency Operations Center.”
-to prioritize something is simply “to give rank to it.” That particular act
shouldn’t take much time at all. In fact, that priority was set by the then City
Council 31 months ago! It’s the preparation of a report that takes time.
-it’s now Mid-November! If staff has “not yet had time” to prepare “a concluding
two year summary report” then, perhaps, the City’s Sustainability & Natural
Resources Official is being overworked by his other temporary positions. Or,
perhaps, it was determined by someone higher up in the chain of command that
ignoring a promise made by City Council to the people in 2018 would be an
easier strategy than ignoring other more recent commitments?
3. To use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to extend this “pilot program” of
Night Hiking and Mountain Bike Soil-Striking is deplorable and dangerous to the
integrity of the City’s Open Spaces and Natural Reserves. It’s also insulting to the public
who, before this program was enacted, protested this action for its lack of adequate data
collection and proposed experimental research., e.g., a night camera is good for large
mammals but not for smaller mammals like bats, nesting birds, reptiles (snakes, lizards,
turtles), or amphibians (salamanders, frogs). Fishes are not directly involved in this
experiment but they can (and do) suffer indirectly, e.g., from excessive siltation in SLO
Creek caused by the constant grinding motion of mountain bike tires on trail surfaces.
4. This “Pilot Program” was to be limited to the Cerro San Luis Natural Reserve
(CSLNR). I have been told by persons who regularly hike on Cerro San Luis that many
new illegal connector trails have been initiated in the past two years to link the new
CSLNR trails to the “fire road” trails carved into the flanks of San Luis Mountain, by
Alex Madonna’s construction equipment during the July 4th 1975 weekend.
5. “An agency may prepare an addendum to an adopted Negative Declaration if. . .
none of the conditions triggering a subsequent Negative Declaration are present.” Since
city Resource staff are “too busy” to examine the alleged 2 seasons of nighttime activity
data, how do we know whether any such “conditions” are actually present? Shouldn’t this
be determined before we allow yet another year of mountain bike activity in the CSLNR?
6. To be Continued...
Respectfully yours,
rjk
Dr. Richard J. Krejsa
Fisheries Biologist, and
Professor Emeritus
Cal Poly, 1994