Thankfully, that is not true when it comes to one type of development that has near-universal approval – the construction and maintenance of public trails through our open space.
Locals and tourists alike enjoy the unparalleled opportunity to walk the Coastal Trail along the mighty Pacific Ocean. Folks hike up Montara Mountain and along countless inland trails. To the south, is Butano State Park and Big Basin. If you don’t enjoy one of these trails at least every now and again you are simply missing one of the joys of living on the coast.
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Enter Sabrina Brennan. A relatively new member of the Midcoast Community Council, Brennan has made it her business to try to understand the arcane and sometimes conflicting rules that govern trail development and maintenance on the California coast. To that end, she has assembled an unprecedented collection of government and private organizations for an unusual MCC meeting in May. Representatives from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the Coastal Conservancy, the Peninsula Open Space Trust, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, Caltrans, California State Parks and the county Parks Department are all expected to attend. All have a role to play in turning the Coastside’s crazy patchwork quilt of trails into a system that could and should seamlessly blanket the area.
Brennan’s goal is to inform residents about current trail plans, available funding options, future mapping and resources available for anyone wishing to help going forward.
The meeting is set for 7 p.m. May 13, at the Cypress Meadows Event Center in Moss Beach. (An earlier version of this editorial included the wrong the time and place of the meeting.) Merely introducing the players and demystifying their interlocking roles would be an ambitious agenda for one night. But that would be a start. The council deserves a lot of praise for having such ambitions and has come a long way in a short time. It seems to have shaken the doldrums that made many – including the Review – question its mission in recent years.
So come to the meeting. Support the continued development of trails in the area, and tip your cap at revitalized Midcoast Community Council while you are at it.
-- Clay Lambert
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