Monday, August 08, 2005

The campaign - week one - Canfield Mountain

This was a good week to get the campaign for city council kicked off. I got good coverage in the papers, very warm response from the friends and family who attended, and this weekend at Art on the Green and the Street Fair I was surprised at how many people wanted to come up and talk about the future and the campaign.

We always see friends we haven't seen in a while on this weekend, but this was different because this time the friends were very excited about helping, asking what they can do, and ready to work. This is a humbling and exciting response!

On Thursday evening the Open Space committee, of which I'm a member, hiked around Canfield Mountain, contemplating the area and getting a sense of the acreage that may well become public property as the Copper Ridge subdivision gets built and the developers donate back property to the city. The challenge of finding an effective route to the land through the neighborhood and to the Forest Service property which abuts the land will be interesting to work through. Parks Director Doug Eastwood is more than up to the challenge.

I was struck by how much slash and the seeming hack job done in places on the mountain to date by private owners. The city will do a better job of maintenance I'm sure when they take ownership, but it appears that the Idaho Dept. of Lands either didn't have tools to get the mess cleaned up, or didn't care to focus on it. Either way, it's a shame and in many places it's a mess.

Here's a link to a Canfield Mountain Trail page for mountain bikers: www.northidahotrails.net

No comments: