With towering redwood trees and quiet, fern-filled canyons, Otis Johnson Wilderness Park draws many locals for its meditative qualities.
A city survey taken Saturday showed two primary reasons for visiting the park: to walk dogs and to enjoy the isolation, serenity and quiet. The big trees, creeks and native plants were favorites of those seeking quiet, the survey showed.
Yet, others said they won”t come to the park — out of fear.
The same survey showed that strange noises, scary characters, graffiti, gangs and lack of police in the park are prime reasons people avoid it.
The contradictions deepened when people talked about what they wanted done to the park.
The message was “hands off” in an impassioned speech by a woman who did not want to have her name in the paper. Her sentiment got big applause at a special Saturday afternoon meeting held by city officials and attended by about 20 people.
But on tours that morning when the surveys were filled out, locals, including many of the same people applauding no action, supported a whole list of hands-on renovations and limited improvements.
Fourteen people who responded Saturday morning asked the city to repair trails and stairs, improve loop trails, remove shortcuts, remove brush, repair erosion slope areas and whack invasive species. Twenty-two locals asked for the installation of a park map, while another 14 asked for signs describing park history.
At the afternoon meeting at Fort Bragg Middle School, Mendocino County Supervisor Kendall Smith and City Councilman Dan Gjerde were in attendance, along with a half dozen city staff members.
The conflicts between action and inaction, as well as between peace and violence, baffled many at the meeting.
Consultant Sally Sheridan, a landscape architect, presented a list of ideas on how the park might be spruced up while keeping it wilderness.
Local resident Jeff Warner noted it was a suggestion by Sheridan for themes for areas of the park that included a “fairy glen” that set off the crowd.
Sheridan showed drawings of picnic tables and even a grand entrance to the park. But it was her hand drawing of a fairy in the redwood forest that irked at least three locals who spoke.
“Generally I thought the presentations were good and did a good job of reflecting the needs in the park,” said Sheridan.
“Where it got into a little trouble was trying to expand the original vision of a wilderness” park. I think people responded negatively to Sally”s fairy [glen] concept, not necessarily to the fact that the park needs some work,” said Warner.
City Community Development Director Marie Jones tried to steer the discussion back on track, telling the crowd to disregard the whole “fairy” business as a musing that really had nothing to do with fixing problems that have not been addressed in decades.
One city idea given the boot by those who took tours and attended the meeting was for a viewing platform overlooking Pudding Creek. Jones said losing the viewing platform would reduce the estimated amount of renovations from $315,000 to $240,000.
Earlier in the day, the needs and spectacular beauty of the park were much more visible, even without a viewing platform.
Some park hillsides are suffering serious erosion, caused by youngsters sliding down the hills on cardboard or hikers taking a shortcut.
Two retaining walls, dating from the early 1970s, are crumbling into powder, causing a spring in one hill to flood the main trail.
Last year, the park reached its worst state, with three big trees down and brush choking most of the trails.
The city hired a crew of inmates from Parlin Fork Conservation Camp in summer 2006. The workers cleared the brush, fixed the worst part of the wooden staircase that connects the Cedar Street and Laurel Street trails and removed vandalized materials.
The inmate crew built new steps and cleared the caretaker”s spot, located at the end of a lane off Cedar Street. The city caretakers, a local couple, had left about five years before and have now been replaced by another pair (including this reporter).
Sheridan suggested identifying the caretakers” residence as such and increasing the caretakers” role. She also mentioned naming the two creeks in the park, as a way to involve the community.
The city hopes to remove invasive species, especially holly, blackberries and ivy, and those ideas were supported by those taking the survey.
The park can be accessed on foot from two city parking lots, one at the east end of Laurel Street and the other on Cedar Street at the north end of Lincoln Street.
The park was purchased in 1970 after the widow of Otis Johnson gave $44,850 in Boise Cascade Company stock. The gift came with the caveat that the park was to be enjoyed in its natural state.
At the Sept. 24 Fort Bragg City Council meeting, staff will seek direction on how to apply for a California Rivers Parkway Program grant, under Proposition 50, which passed in 2002. A similar grant was rejected last year, in part because of a lack of a plant survey, which will be included this year, Jones said.
