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| Image: All I want for Christmas is... an operating agreement we can sign. One year ago today the City Council voted to excise disc golf from Upper Bidwell Park. Tomorrow at 6PM we'll meet at the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission's Policy Advisory Committee (421 Main Street, Commissioners Mary Brentwood, Jane Turney, and Rich Ober) to review the agreement the city has drawn up for the management of the disc golf course . The agreement and agenda are on the Outsiders web site(see here). The operating agreement went through three iterations over the last 6 months or so. The Outsiders reviewed agreements presented by the General Services Director, Dennis Beardsley. The agreement's text was created by the Assistant City Attorney, Alicia Rock. We had an attorney review the 3rd iteration of the agreement for any pitfalls. There were a couple of points in the discussion that really identify the core of this operating agreement. The first is the issue of liability. It was agreed between parties that there was no way for the Outsiders to assume liability for park users. We could not restrict, enforce, or oversee park use/rules in an area that was open to the public 24 hours per day. Authority could not be granted to us to do those things. And as a volunteer group, we have no business attempting to implement those controls. This caused what was originally a lease agreement to be restructured. The liability we would assume is for the adequate and appropriate placement of disc golf related infrastructure. So if a tee-pad is in disrepair, we will take care of it. The second issue was that of monitoring studies. Initially the city had the Outsiders responsible for the cost of the studies, and if they were challenged, the cost to the city to defend them. Since the city would not be footing the bill they would have no reason to limit study costs to reasonable dollar amounts, and no reason to limit costs to defend the studies commissioned. Historically, the city has spent as much as $42,000 for botanical studies in a similarly sized area (Comanche Creek). They also allocated $100,000 to defend the environmental studies of the disc golf site when the Friends of Bidwell Park hired an attorney in 2007 to challenge them. We simply can't afford those potential costs. Based on our financial plan we felt we could afford to pay up to $4,000 annually for studies. We asked the city to maintain responsibility for the studies and allow us to pay up to a capped amount of $4,000. They responded with a need for $5,000 annually and a 3% annual inflationary increase to that number. We adjusted our plan, and now roughly 60% of the money we will try to raise annually will potentially be spent on studies. It's fair to ask why one group of park users should pay for maintenance, mitigation, and studies of their park use while swimmers, hikers, bikers, and equestrians are exempt. The answer to that question is pretty simple. This is what the City Council wanted. Now, do the Outsiders represent all disc golfers? Nope. What we represent is a group of people willing to step forward and help the city manage and maintain the Highway 32 site for recreation. Will we sign any agreement that comes out of this process? Nope. If we don't sign an agreement will disc golf be gone? Nope. The city will still have to remove all of the people that didn't want to be removed 1 year ago today. What we're offering is to work hard to keep this site maintained. We're offering to pay about $5,000 annually to keep a non-profit running (a requirement of the City Council). We're offering to spend up to $5,000 annually on studies (a requirement of the EIR). We're offering to spend up to $3,000 annually on repairs and maintenance (related to EIR mitigation). We're also offering to raise and spend about $27,000 on the disc golf improvements (defined in the EIR). In total we would spend between $60,000 and $90,000 over the next 5 years at highway 32. This would be spent on a site whose maintenance has been ignored for over 2 decades. The funding is a tall order in this economy, it is something we may or may not be able to pull off, but we're willing to try. So far I have been pleased with the responsiveness of the city staff in understanding where a non-profit can help, and where we really can't. If that attitude continues through elected and appointed officials we'll have an agreement signed just before Dennis Beardsley retires (probably not the career capstone he was looking for). If the operating agreement is scuttled by more game play, then our sincere offer to help will be brushed aside. At that point park users will need to seek alternative means to secure public access to public lands. Not a fun prospect, but one that is probably easier to implement and more affordable than the offer currently on the table. |
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All I Want For Christmas Is...
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Lon
About Me: Fasten your seatbelts for an exhilarating trip through Chico's public policy; I guarantee it's marginally better than public access TV.
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Man I'm dying to hear how that went. That Mary Brentwood lady was just downright hostile during the first round. She's the one who said we were painting FoBP as "child haters", when none of us said one word to that point. She said it.
so, how do you make yourself constantly deal openly with these people? Are you some kind of masochist? (wow, I spelled that right on the first whack!) I'm sorry, I'm not that "big." When somebody dicks me around, the last they see of me is my big ass walking away. And away. And away.
Remember, they want you, you don't want them. You're Matt Dillon, okay, to the hoards of us who just want to pound that ridge to powder and never do anything to fix it. They better get that grain of information through the skinny little chute between their ears.
I don't recall Mary Brentwood saying that. Lisa Emrich, who is currently the BPPC chair, did say to the council that she felt like anyone against disc golf was being painted as against kids and families.
There seems to be this mentality that if you claim to be protecting the environment there can be no moral argument against your actions. That's simply not true. I think that showed a lack of recognition that kids and families use the site, and when you support removing them...
I'm not sure how I, and others, continue to grapple over this. It certainly can be a waste of time, and my wife thinks I'm insane.
But I know that many of the people that use the disc golf site are young and/or poor. I know that the environmental impacts are overstated and no more severe than those occuring in many other areas of the park. I really believe that losing disc golf leads to losses in other areas of recreation.
The meeting is tonight.
Lon
so, Lisa Emmerich is the one who called FoBP a bunch of kid haters? Sorry to screw that up, I guess it's time to put Juanita out to pasture - Moooo-ooooo!
is Rich Ober the man who said he had come to the meeting not knowing which way he would vote, but the disc golf people convinced him to vote for the course? That was an unbelievably open-minded statement, and I figgered that guy was summarily executed after the meeting.
Would you believe, I also used to confuse Ed McLaughlin with Ed McLaughlin? Neither of them was very happy about that.
speaking of powder, oh yeah, surf's up Daddy-o! All work and no play makes Juanita crazy.
I'm not sure which meeting you're talking about.
Rich Ober wrote a letter to the editor during the referendum "as a Park Commissioner", that called the referendum effort disingenuous (SP?). I don't recall him voting in support of disc golf.
I think Jamison Watts, a newish commissioner, voted to keep the short course at 32.
But honestly, there have been so many meetings that I can't recall everyone's votes.
I do recall that Emerich and Turney attended a council meeting and spoke against disc golf as commissioners. And Ober and Turney wrote letters to the editor against disc golf, Ober specifically stating that he was writing as a commissioner.
Lon