Thanks to jSatch for posting this up under another thread earlier today.

But just in case, I wanted to post this up on it's own thread for better visibility.

Update Mission Trails Regional Park Closures

On Wednesday evening, Sept. 18th, all SDMBA Board Members and approximately 70 members and concerned citizens attended the monthly meeting of the San Diego Mountain Biking Association at the MTRP Visitors Center. Chris Zirkle, the Deputy Director of Open Space for the City of San Diego, Parks and Rec. Department met with us to provide information on how the City is responding to the letter they received by the CA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. Mr. Zirkle answered questions and listened to comments and suggestions from the audience. We appreciate the willingness of Mr. Zirkle to make time to speak with us, especially considering it was his birthday.

The next afternoon, Thursday, September 19th, several concerned citizens attended the MTRP Task Force meeting. Speakers included SDMBA members, Board member Gardner Grady and SDMBA Liaison Kim Wiley and audience members included representatives from the equestrian community.

We reiterated our willingness to help find a solution to the issue of Spring and Oak Canyons without a complete closure of the area pointing out that responsible use can deter irresponsible abuse. We also pointed out that managing the area may be easier than trying to "control" all users.

Councilman Scott Sherman was supportive of recreation in the park and Supervisor Dave Roberts also seemed supportive. Deputy Director Zirkle stated that in response to some good points he heard at Wednesday's (SDMBA) meeting he had contacted the wildlife agencies to ask for clarification of exactly what they were thinking of when they asked the City to "control access." Thank you to everyone who came out on the 18th and 19th to give input to City staff about possible solutions to this challenge.

The SDMBA will keep you informed of any further developments and actions you can take to help. We will certainly want mountain bikers and all trail users to show up to the next Mission Trials Regional Park Master Plan Update meeting currently planned to be scheduled for October.

Just to be clear, SDMBA is working on a strategy for this issue and we will be posting up more information on what we can all do to help out. Please stand by and thank you for your support!

In the meantime, why not come out to Tour de Fat on Saturday and drink some beer and ride your bike? Might at least make us a feel a little better about this very sad and unnecessary state of affairs we find ourselves in.

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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss.

East Elliot - Spring Canyon/Oak canyon is just the start. CDFW wants to hit the reset button on ALL trails in MTRP and revert back to 1985. It is beyond bad and ludicrous!

Mission Trails battle heats up

"According to a letter from both the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, trails that have been created since the 1985 Master Development plan for the park must be blocked off, closed and returned to natural habitat."

Uh, what?????

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The world does not revolve around you but your actions impact us all!

I see at least one other person read the CDFW letter closely.

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A bicycle is a splendid thing.
~Ernest Hemingway

Anybody know how USFW and CDFW operations there are funded? Developer mitigation agreements often have a "perpetual management plan" that provides permanent ( i.e., perpetual) endowment money and area-specific conservation purpose to those sorts of entities; USFW is always at the table in the mitigation agreements I've seen. I don't know if the huge Fanita development is involved here, but that's my educated guess. The part that is not real clear to me is how they have apparently assumed jurisdiction over the city park and marine land. Maybe it is a case of mitigation now being permitted over existing, already spoken for, open space, as opposed to the usual scenario of putting aside a chunk of developer owned land as conservation property. I am making lots of assumptions in what I just wrote so I could be totally wrong, but wanted to add to the conversation if these things had not been considered.

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"We'll ride it until they pave it."

-Big Clyde

My first read of this is exactly like Mike's. They are trying to take existing "marginal" land that has lots of trails on it and get the users thrown out so that they can get this same track of land upgraded to be declared "pristine" land. This will make that land more valuable in trade as mitigation for the desecration they are planning for Fanita ranch. I cannot think of any other way that this would be in their interest to kick out the users at this time.

Same shit as DMM, just a different location. It's amazing that they seem to be able to pull this same stupid trick repeatedly and get away with it.

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Velo Ergo Endo

My understanding based on what I've read and heard is that agencies got jurisdiction via the MSCP (Multiple species conservation plan).

Prior to the MSCP, developments were evaluated on their own. Where endangered species were involved there was lots of red tape and lawsuits but the process did not really consider if there was similar habitat elsewhere, they just looked at the individual project itself.

With MSCP all of the undeveloped land and parks/open spaces in the region have been mapped and endangered species habitat has been inventoried and defined as a big pool. Now the developer and the agencies can look around, buy some "equivalent" land elsewhere, and say 'look its ok to rape and pillage here because we are saving this other area which has the same value'. Less red tape, and fewer lawsuits. This approach looks at the big picture across the whole landscape. Developments are not allowed to create a net loss to this habitat pool - hence buying land to mitigate what is bulldozed. The City and agencies are not allowed to create a net loss to this habitat pool either, through their land management.

Since the land at MTRP and north of 52 is also included in this pool of endangered species habitat, the agencies are getting involved in the management plan update for the area. They consider the trails in Spring/Oak and the other impacts listed in their letter to the City as a degradation and a net loss to this pool. If this is actually true, both the City and the agencies could be sued by enviros under the endangered species act. That is why the agencies are all over the City on this. I don't think the City sees the trails as harmful the way the agencies do, but being bureaucrats the City won't stick their necks out and stand up to the agencies.

So I don't think this whole issue has anything to do with making Spring / Oak out as pristine habitat to use it as mitigation land for something like Fanita. It has more to do with letting the agencies get a foot in the door to all our open spaces via the MSCP. All open spaces - parks (City/County/State), private land, etc are covered under MSCP so all areas could be affected by this as the agencies stick their nose into everything.

For MTRP I don't think we will be affected much aside from Spring/Oak. To my knowledge most of the trails in MTRP proper were in the 1985 management plan - could be wrong though.

The places we will have the biggest problems are areas that don't have an existing approved management plan, and areas where trails exist which are not on an approved management plan. I can think of a lot of these right now. In theory the agencies could walk in and have the City/County/State shut those trails down just like they are doing in Spring/Oak. Land managers will no longer be free to grandfather in a social trail anymore if the agencies say otherwise.

Here are some maps.

http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/pds/mscp/doc ... _11x17.pdf

http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/pds/mscp/doc ... a_Plan.pdf

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"We'll ride it until they pave it."

-Big Clyde

in 1985 there must have been a mtn biker population there approaching zero.

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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ~Milan Kundera

Upon reading the county mscp implementation agreement, http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/pds/mscp/doc ... eement.pdf, it boils down to a deal allowing developers to take endangered species by developing houses in exchange for approved mitigation agreements. What I find not very surprising is how they bury the words "mitigation agreement" (section 17 a) and "funding" (the mitigation bank appendix) in the fine print. To many, reading this document could lead to the impression it is an environmental protection plan. however, what is not readily apparent is how mitigation agreements directly fund the parties to the agreement by non wasting endowments.

If you build in the plan area, USFW and CDFG will have some of your money. They will aggressively protect their place at the table. The deal is for 50 years.

The mitigation bank appendix does state that existing open space cannot be used for mitigation, so that question has been answered. However, it looks like the whole ball of wax is connected since fanitas developers are in a participating city, santee.

I for one am glad to see my city not on the list of 12 participating jurisdictions.

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"We'll ride it until they pave it."

-Big Clyde

So, basically, it's like I figured all along.....the developers make a killing, and the funds they trickle for mitigation make the enviro's very happy. It's win-win for these 'strange bedfellows'.

Quintessential San Diego politics, at it's finest.

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Scum on a Bike

received this from a lpcpcac email. apparently the closing of mtrp has increased the number of visitors to los pen.

http://scoopsandiego.com/parks_recreati ... ?success=1

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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ~Milan Kundera

Thanks to all the contributors to this (and other) thread(s) who have taken the time to explain stuff and peel-the-onion a bit for us - these issues are complex and pretty far outside the average person's experience (I know - I'm very average) - It makes my head hurt just trying to understand our Government sometimes.

$10 says that Three Barrels is a millionaires driveway five years from now. Everytime the gubment agencies chase peasants out of the playgrounds, big houses go up next. Every frigin' time.

Sure feel for all you SDer's that like to MTB, you couldn't live in a worse town for trail access. I do hope that the city councils of SD and all the burbs figure out the resource that trails and great weather are. Living in a city that embraces cycling, trail activities and expands the options for the users is nice.

Good luck!

Thanks. If it's not a McMansion driveway, it'll be because a big developer arranged for it to be mitigation land for a McMansion driveway somewhere else.

This is how San Diego politics works.....the basic Bait 'n Switch. And it works....most San Diegans are far too obsessed with their own little mcmansions and their toys-compared to their neighbors' toys, to worry about or even notice how they are slowly being encircled. And eaten up.

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Scum on a Bike

I went for a recon ride this afternoon to see the latest. Took a few pictures of signs, etc., then rode up L1/Teote and down 3 Barrels. On the way back, at the Grasslands crossing, I came upon Ranger Mika (Ranger Mel's associate) and had a nice, friendly chat with her. She'd been out in the area most of the day, she said, talking to various groups of bikers and hikers that passed by. Said she had talked to around 20 different groups and everyone was surprisingly friendly. I was very friendly as well, but emphasized that I was NOT happy with the closures. She had a map showing the various trails in red, yellow, and green, and explained that the red ones were the first slated to be "rehabilitated". Those were Deer Dancer; the connector trail (don't know the name) from the east end of Deer Dancer over to L1; Teote (just the top part connecting the upper end of L1 to the ridge); and Grassy Knoll. She said that Ranger Mel was putting in the signs, and the artistic placement of deadfall on the rehabbed trails was being done by either Urban Corps crews or Parolee crews. All at the direction of their superiors - just following orders, etc. She had a second map overlaid with data points from a city biologist (not CDFW, she said) showing various locations of endangered species. She mentioned that there was supposed to be a 100' (or was it 100 yard?) bubble of undisturbed space around these sites.

So, I explained a few things to her. Mountain Bikers LOVE something called "singletrack" - trails that are only about 18" wide. MTBers LOVE staying ON the trails, riding in single file and not stopping if possible. Their rubber tires leave nothing but a light tread print on the trails. There can be plenty of endangered foo-foo bush or whatever just a few feet off the trail and it will never be disturbed by MTBers. In fact, the map she had actually provided plenty of evidence to that effect - endangered plants have been spotted right next to trails that have been there for DECADES, and they appear to be doing just fine.

I also pointed out that when they close trails, the MTBers don't just go away. Some will continue to ride the closed trails (but going around all that beautiful deadfall, creating new trails), and some will move into the central part of the park and ride on the trails/roads/stroller paths right alongside the hikers. Same with the trail runners. By closing the popular MTB trails, they're increasing user density in other areas. The ideal place for MTBers and trail runners is out o\in the more remote areas (like Spring/Oak) - once you get a mile or so away from a trailhead, the potential for conflict with the hordes of casual hikers goes down drastically. You can expect the MTB traffic on the Visitor Center Loop trail to increase. In fact, I started my ride there today (probably only the second time I've ridden it, because, well... it's just to gnarly for me, I guess

She was very receptive and willing to listen to my comments, although I don't know if it will do any good. She and Mel aren't policymakers, they're just there to carry out orders that are handed down to them. But what the heck, it made me feel better to tell her this stuff.

So, here's what the current round of signs is looking like:


Deadfall on the trail just north of the 52 bridge:








Sign at the base of L1, facing back the way I just came:




Signpost (but no sign) looking up toward L1:




Another one, on the "high trail" that continues north up Spring parallel to the main canyon:




The connector trail coming in to L1 from the bottom of Deer Dancer:




No signs up here (yet):