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Sunday, February 07, 2010

Your chance for winter trails input




On Tuesday the people who are drafting up a roadsystem trails plan for the Kodiak Island Borough will be visiting and talking with the various winter trails user groups. They want to hear how we use our trails in winter. They also want to know about conflicts between user groups and what areas of the roadsystem we use in winter. Here is your chance to have input on a very important Borough planning document when it is going through the public process. Let's not wait until it is almost finished and then come out of the woodwork and complain that our views were not known.

For instance, if you feel skiers going too fast on the sledding hill are a dangerous nuisance, or ruts in your cross country ski trail a hinderance - if you like to go sledding, ice skate, ice fish, snowmobile, ski or whatever come to the meeting at the Borough building on Tuesday at 7PM. Let them hear your views!

Patrick

1 comment:

Katie said...

Patrick, You know I love your blog. When I read the title of this entry, I wondered if you would include a reference to the situation at Fort Abercrombie. Here is the link to the first 30+ public comments out of around 60 that State Parks has recently received about the bus turnaround plans for Miller Point at Abercrombie: http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/units/kodiak/millerptcomments.pdf

This is not a group of people writing to “complain that our voices were not heard”. These are citizens, a diverse cross section of the community, writing that the rationalities behind the bus turnaround are in direct contrast to the intrinsic qualities of the park. I could go on and on about the systematic failure by State Parks to communicate any information about this project as it developed, but I think the more salient point is this: even good planning does not always prevent bad ideas. And an individual or family or neighborhood or community should not be expected to relinquish their right to protest inappropriate development on public lands because of the perception, by some, that the planning was adequate.

The Community Development Dept. is doing a good job getting the word out about the planning process for Borough trails.

Best, Katie