Commission Impossible

In addition to the "mis-memory" of Scott Gruendl regarding the occurance of the disc golf convervsation, a lesser but still salient observation is his comment regarding the contents of that conversation.

To paraphrase, he said something along the lines of, ". . . I had a conversation with Lon and Scotty about using RDA funds to get the course built if EIR came back allowing disc golf." This shows that even in imaginary conversations, he is willing to use RDA funds for non-blight issues. Then again, maybe he is using the Friends of Bidwell Park definition of blight, i.e. anything in the park they don't like is blight.

I emailed the aforementioned "Scotty" to see if he had some conversation with Scott Gruendl about funding the courses with RDA money. Here is his response...

"What is an RDA project?

Scotty"

It should not be so awkward of a subject for Scott, Mary and Tom to discuss. The vast majority of their progressive following, parents, teachers, friends and kids, have been in favor of disc golf now for many years, and they certainly don't need to worry about losing the votes of the few who are against it. It's really too bad that these same few were allowed to turn this into such a politically devisive issue at the expense losing so many moderates and conservationists.

Disc golf is a perfect fit with the Sierra Club's "No Child Left Inside" efforts toward healthy opportunities for low income and disadvantaged youth to learn about nature, excercise and good social skills. The Boys and Girls Club and Youth for Change as well as many teachers and coachs have written in support of it.

This was all confirmed once again at our recent $400K Park Master Management Planning meetings. The vote taken of the Citizens Advisory Committee was a landslide in favor of improvements of the two courses at the current site. An independent evironmental consultant's findings only reinforced this.

Prior to this, the Park Commission had approved it unanimously and the City Council had also unanimously approved $206 K for the project after the first $50K environmental review came back good.

As one of the original disc golf proponents from many years ago, I would welcome the opportunity to bring them up to speed with the history of all the countless public meetings and their countless compromises that have led up to the present. Most of this had taken place long before Scott became a councilor. As yet there has been no effort by him or Mary or Tom to discuss any of this with me, but I am always available and happy to do so. There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about the chain of events that would be easy to clear up.

This activity did exist up there before the City owned the property and I remember playing along with cattle, hunters and four wheelers back when it was BLM land. There were not even fences separating it from the surrounding privately owned land. Ater the City acquired the land and had considered many other alternate sites, permission was given by the Park Dept. to continue playing at the current location while its improvements were pending.

I still have brief cases full of letters and other documentation to back it all up.

As for existing impacts, volunteers have repeatedly asked permission to do basic trail maintenance and layout adjustments. These requests have always been repeatedly denied by the City for many years. If the City had followed through and carried out their own planned mitigation from many years ago, things would certainly look a lot better now.

As for RDA funds, the courses are many miles from the nearest RDA zones. This suggestion may be a bone thrown off a cliff, but again I'd be happy to find out otherwise. (It kind of seems silly to worry about the few thousand dollars that the course would cost when we've already spent a half million on studies and plans.)

Tom and Mary, you are welcome to phone or e-mail me anytime. 10 years is hard to condense into a blog post.

Gregg Payne
228-3399

Mary Flyns's answer is a hoot. "Gee I dunno but maybe we can make money off it". Annie Bidwell isn't rolling over, she's spinning.

I recall mentioning during a Finance Committee with the RDA Citizens Committee present (including Lon) that disc golf should be considered as a potential project. At least to find out if it is eligible.

I spoke with Scotty about this at the commissioner disciplinary hearing and again just the other day.

What's with the negative comments about me imagining things? As the chair of the RDA Board of Directors, I have many conversations with people about potential and proposed RDA projects in order to gather information needed to make decisions. Is that so unreasonable?

Scott,

First, congratulations on being reelected.

To be clear, I never said you imagined things. I asked when and where our conversation occurred, and who else was around to hear it. To me there is a difference between a statement you made during a public meeting that was directed to city staff and you and I having a conversation. I recall a brief mention of disc golf as a possible RDA project, and speacial project worker Lando saying it would be "borderline" use of RDA funds. The discussion was about 15 seconds in length.

What I found objectionable is that during your interview with the ER you said that you had a conversation with me about getting disc golf on the list of RDA projects. That never happened, and the impression left was that because people didn't step up and make it happen (based on your advice), funding might be delayed for years.

From where I'm sitting that's an unfair and inaccurate representation of what really happened.

But maybe you felt it was the only appropriate way for you to prod disc golfers into getting involved. If that's the case, I was obtuse and missed the invitation.

Honestly, I don't think RDA is an appropriate mechanism for funding disc golf. It might be fine (and necessary) for the parking and trail improvements, since those would not be specific to disc golf.

I've always felt that disc golfers funding the equipment and infrastructure they use would be appropriate. The downside here is that improvements would take time to fund, and the city might want to make improvements faster to get a handle on the recreation's popularity/impact.