Dear Mr. Somers,
I hope this finds you well and happy.
Thank
you again for the time you took to speak to me and the Mill Valley
Meadows HOA Vice President Gloria Rashti at your August 25 meeting at
which you announced the recommendation of the MCOSD to open the Middagh
to mountain biking.
As you may know, many
homeowners in Scott Valley, Mill Valley Meadows, Meadowsweet and Kite
Hill, have direct access from their neighborhoods, if not their homes,
to the Alto Bowl and Horse Hill OSPs.
We have
long used the trails on these preserves, especially the Middagh, for
daily constitutionals, dog walking and short cuts to one another’s
homes. There are many people who are horse lovers who take walks to try
to find the horse wherever they may be grazing.
Then,
of course, there are the equestrians themselves, who do so much to
maintain the preserves, and who try their best to be both good stewards
and supportive of community uses of the Middagh.
Scott
Valley and Mill Valley Meadows in particular have many seniors who have
not only been walking these hills for decades but they also remember
the effort it took to raise the funds to save Horse Hill as a sanctuary
for horses.
All of us lucky enough to be close
to open space have a very vested interest in what the MCOSD is now
considering to do to our neighborhood preserve.
However,
unlike the bike lobbies who have full time staff to urge that they be
given the Middagh as a short cut for a handful of bikers, the homeowners
have no official organization to speak for them.
We
find our voices to be stifled and minimized by the process the MCOSD
has used to develop the RTMP, with its workshops that are filled by
hundreds of bikers who make requests of virtually all trails in every
preserve.
In the midst of these hundreds of bikers, our voices are small indeed and seemingly ignored.
In
comparison to other preserves, the Alto Bowl and Horse Hill are very
small and they have been specifically saved from development by Mill
Valley and the community as a place for the horses. We also love seeing
them and enjoying their quiet presence.
We have
not seemed to be able to get our point across to your organization that
the Alto Bowl and Horse Hill are not appropriate preserves for biking
because of the presence of those who are too slow or hard of hearing or
unable to get out of the path of bikers.
We
have sent report after report of illegal biking on the Middagh and also
of potentially serious accidents. I personally saw such a potential
accident coming off Camino Alto and learned later that your office
clocked this speed as 41 mph.
We also see
bikers speeding and jumping on the erosion dips and we also see them
going off trail altogether. They also ride at night. Because of all
these incidents, I personally avoid going on the Middagh when I see
bikers and others say they do as well.
I
am too close to the deadline of 4 pm to go on, but I could. Opening the
Middagh to biking is not necessary. Bikers have any number of other
means of accessing other preserves. This is a very small neighborhood
preserve and horse sanctuary.
Please save our preserve from mechanized users that will startle the horses and scare the seniors here.
Finally, signage is not going to make the Middagh safe, it will only make it ugly.
Thank you for your consideration.
Mari Robinson
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A Letter to Carl Somers at MCOSD about the Bob Middagh Trail