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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/17/2017 Item 10, Krejsa Christian, Kevin From:Richard J. Krejsa <rkrejsa@calpoly.edu> Sent:Monday, October To:Harmon, Heidi; Pease, Andy; Gomez, Aaron; cchristian@slocity.org; Rivoire, Dan; E- mail Council Website Cc:Hill, Robert Subject:RJK Comments on Item #10, City Council Meeting on 17 October 2017 Attachments:Some Thoughts on Mountains.docx To the Mayor and City Council, I wrote this Commentary (above) to commemorate the illegal scarring of Cerro San Luis by road-building crews of Alex Madonna Construction Co. on the 4th of July weekend, 1975. Within 3 days, this so-called agricultural road-building project was accomplished without SLO County permit. These illegal actions were the first major wounds in the "skin" of San Luis Mountain and they became the surfaces upon which our major hiking trails were constructed. Those primitive fast-built roads, however, were built over arroyos without the installation of proper conduits and this has resulted in erosion problems and at least one major post-storm wash- out failure on the Foothill side of the mountain. Had this event occurred on only one arroyo toward the NE, the slide would have taken out the much of the neighborhood along La Entrada Ave! Those fast-cut roads also have caused erosional effects that continue to this day. They also formed the basis upon which modern mountain bike enthusiasts began constructing authorized and unauthorized trails in the open space of Cerro San Luis. In my "long-term" activist/public official/citizen/taxpayer view of SLO City government actions (48 years now and counting...), I would contend that the City mountain bike trails building program, sponsored by the Parks & Recreation Department, is causing significant wounds in the "skin" of Cerro San Luis. Furthermore, the current night-hiking proposal, in my view, will constitute a continuous irritant to the already wounded living skin of this mountain. Once allowed to grow, it will surely become another major wound. That is one of the many reasons that I oppose not only night hiking and biking, but also the entire concept of building more mountain biking trails in other Open Space Reserves within the City of San Luis Obispo. I have credentials for supporting my opposition not only to night hiking and biking but for the whole idea of allowing mountain bikes on city open space trails. Mountain biking can in no way or fashion be considered to be "passive" recreation. Just look at some of the videos appearing on the Internet concerning mountain biking, featuring (the incorrectly named) "Mt. Madonna" and "The Irish Hills". In 1995-96, I served on the SelectionCommittee that announced, and selected for, the position of Natural Resource Manager and also, some 5 years later, for the position of City Biologist. The whole concept of linking the Natural Resource Manager with Open Space was based on the concept that Open Space was for "the Creatures"! On the other hand, the Parks & Recreation Department was for people, our citizens. For the entire time since that original hiring, that is why the Natural Resource Manager and staff was placed in the City's Administrative Department: to keep it independent of the Parks and Recreation Department. To this extent, I also oppose the fact that mountain bike trails should not be located in our Open Space Natural Reserves. And, yet, they are being built, and also promoted there, by the Parks & Recreation Department. 1 As one of few original "environmental" activists still alive in this City, I feel it is my duty to call attention to projects that do not meet the stated goals of a majority of City residents, or of General Plan, Land Use Element, and EQTF goals. I began doing this in 1969 and, I guess, I'll probably continue doing this al long as I am physically able. Below are some guideposts I have followed and supported over many years. "The Majority of San Luis Obispo residents value the city's natural beauty, clean air, and open spaces as the city's greatest strengths, and as the most important aspects of it highest quality of life." --General Plan Residents' Opinion Survey, May 1988-- "We have the right to determine your community's destiny based on our community values...we direct our elected representatives and civic employees \[e.g., Natural Resource Manager, City Biologist, and Parks & Recreation Department administrative officials and employees\] to preserve our community's natural environment and control excessive growth detrimental to the long-term sustainability of the community." --General Plan Land Use Element Preamble and Vision, August 1994-- "It is the policy of the City to protect its unique natural resources and systems by including their considerations and needs... and giving those considerations and needs a planning priority co-equal with that accorded other community needs. Under this policy, the City will make provisions for the continued existence of its natural resources within the community. The term "community" thus indicates not only the urbanized human community, dominated by urban land development and technological systems, but also a natural community rich in biological and geological diversity, as well as a pre-urban human community with a strong agricultural base." --Land Use Element program 6.0.4-- "Protect, sustain, and where it has been degraded, enhance wildlife habitat on land surrounding the city, at Laguna Lake, along creeks and other wetlands, and on open hills and ridges within the City, so that diverse, native plants, fish and animals (i.e., wildlife) can continue to live within the area." --Land Use Element Goal # 3-- The concept of mountain biking in open spaces also does not meet goals of the Environmental Quality Task Force (EQTF) which were approved by the City Council, and on which I proudly served in 1994 and 1995: "Clean air, abundant native plants and wildlife, open spaces, and unique land forms---these are the natural beauty of San Luis Obispo. Our community's remaining natural assets are becoming increasingly rare in California. They can be lost through ignorance, inattention, or conscious political action. Once lost, they can never be replaced." {Please, Mayor & Council members, do not cause the loss of one of our rare opens spaces through "conscious political action". This mountain biking group is owed much credit for helping the City build its trail system. But, I believe mountain biking is not passive recreation and, furthermore, is against too many of our City's Planning Document Goals and Visions. Therefore, I cannot support the Night Hiking and Biking pilot plan. "Throughout our work, we found two themes always present. One theme is that a healthy, diverse natural environment has value in itself. Non-human life has intrinsic value which, unless useful as a commodity, is not generally recognized by our economic system." "The second theme is the attachment we humans have for the place where we live and the others who live here. We speak to protecting the environment not just for its intrinsic value, but to the kind of place we want to live. Looked at another way, our whole natural landscape is an historic treasure which is fast disappearing." 2 --EQTF Final Report: Introduction, February 1995-- "Our progress in becoming more sustainable cannot be measured only in terms of written goals statements, or even by how many acres of open space we have acquired. We need to be able to measure progress in terms such as how much erosion has been stopped, how many existing wildlife corridors and habitats have been maintained, and how many species saved." --EQTF Commitment to Goals, Final Report 3 February 1995-- The Agenda Package for this Pilot Study item is full of many errors and assumptions. I am just seven weeks out of active surgery and, although I have read the entire document, it would take me at least another week or two to write up all those parts of the agenda package that are unsupported by any kind of research data. For now, I'll go with the collective reasoning of many of the City's planning documents (General Plan, LUE, Opens Space Element, and EQTF documents) already codified in SLO City documents. I'll go with proven plans and history. Respectfully submitted, Richard J. Krejsa, PhD 3 Some Thoughts on Mountains, Monuments, and Money (Green Frog Skins) [1st Published 9 October 1975] [Aboard AMTRAK after reading: “Lame Deer--Seeker of Visions”, by John (Fire) Lame Deer & Richard Erdoes] The ‘M’ on Cerro San Luis can stand for Mission, Madonna Inn or even Mount Rushmore. All are the result of conquest: symbols of how enough power, influence, or money, can translate our natural resources into technological wonders where people, mostly white, can come to worship; come to praise; to give glory; to give thanks that men can build (trails or) monuments. Can build a letter ‘M’, build a restaurant, or carve four Presidential faces out of the skin of the Earth. That all may see, look up to, or down from, without seeing the pile of rubble at the base, or the spoil which flows down the sides like giant tears. Without seeing the life that has been crushed out of the trees, the brush, and the wildflowers. Without missing or even realizing that a spirit has been smothered here by the blade of the bulldozer (or bike tire), just as the spirit of the Black Hills was perverted by Borglum’s jack-hammer. What will (our) tourists see as they look up to that pinnacle? Will they see the fear of the hillside residents as winter rains threaten to fill the arroyos and their home with sacred soil from the scarred mantle? Will they see the cost to the taxpayers as recently rebuilt conduits will have to be enlarged to accommodate the swollen waters of Old Garden Creek? Will they envision the eventual death of Laguna Lake by siltation? Will they understand the worry of the untold parents whose children use to climb the mountain freely . . . with poison oak, rather than a (spoked wheel), the only threat to their safety? Will the tourists, who are privileged to enjoy the view, ever know how the first sight of carving up the mountain divided the community and its leaders into camps? The tourist may never know that the scars they see (if they see them at all) are but a small reflection of the scars that are borne in the hearts and minds of the people of San Luis Obispo. To the Sioux and the Santee, and to other Native Americans, only the top of Mt. Rushmore is still sacred. It is the only place where they aren’t forced to look at those giant faces; the only place where one isn’t reminded of those monumental paperweights, tourist curios for those who come to gawk at all the power represent- ed there. And what of San Luis Mountain? Can it escape a similar fate? Will not all the picture postcards tell of the enormous technology that was brought to bear in order to tame this wild mountain: energy used, petroleum expended . . . to carve the “fire roads” (and mountain bike trails) to “enhance the environment” so that all may see what one man (or one group) can do if he (they) sets his (their) mind to it. So that visitors (local or invited here via Internet video, or courtesy of SLO Parks & Recreation Department) may better view from the summit: the majesty (and biking trails) of the Irish Hills, with their transmission lines from Diablo; Cuesta Ridge, with its perpetual reminder of U.S. Forest Service power; and the City of San Luis Obispo, planned but yet unplanned, being shaped more by the forces of the market than by the will of the majority. Will not the red men, who chance to see it, laugh silently to themselves? And, perhaps, even weep for us as we come to realize that our sacred mountain, like theirs, is scarred forever in the name of protection . . . in the name of (local and distant mountain bike riding enthusiasts) . . . in the name of the Madonna Inn . . . in the name of the green frog skin? R.J. Krejsa, 30 August 1975 (plus parts revised/added, 16 October 2017)