A controversial plan that envisions two to three miles of trails
starting near Jackson Elementary School and winding up the eastern
foothills continues to elicit strong reactions.
Morgan Hill – A controversial plan that envisions two to three miles of trails starting near Jackson Elementary School and winding up the eastern foothills continues to elicit strong reactions.
The Morgan Hill Bicycle and Trails Advisory Committee, was scheduled to hear the proposal during its regularly scheduled monthly meeting Thursday evening at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center.
Alarmed Jackson Oaks residents have voiced their concerns about the trails in letters to the editor and interviews with the Times. The residents also planned to give a presentation about what they feel are significant fire and safety risks to committee members at Thursday night’s meeting.
“We don’t object to trails, but in this area, with brush, fire danger, wildlife … the impacts are too much,” said Jackson Oaks resident Philip Bogosian Wednesday in a phone interview. “The situation here is the city may want to put these trails in but it doesn’t appear they want to increase fire and law enforcement” along the paths.
Bogosian said trail opponents in Jackson Oaks surveyed the neighborhood and found about 65 percent of households objected to putting trails on public hillsides near their homes. The neighborhood’s homeowners association also wrote a May 19 letter to the city officially objecting to the trails proposal.
The idea of building trails near hundreds of secluded Jackson Oaks homes is included in the Morgan Hill Public Works Department’s recently released $40,000 Trails and Natural Resources Study.
The study maps out where the city might put more than 20 miles of recreational routes for walkers, bikers and joggers connecting parks, public facilities and neighborhoods around the city.
If adopted by the council in September, the study would not authorize the construction of trails, but would provide a master plan document to guide future trail building efforts.
The city’s general plan calls for a trails network, and the council authorized the public works department in 2006 to use a $40,000 state grant to develop the study.
City engineers and their consultant completed a draft in February that circulated for public review earlier this month. The bicycle and trails advisory committee – consisting of Morgan Hill residents appointed by the council to give policy advice – is reviewing the trails study before it moves on to the Morgan Hill Parks and Recreation Commission, another advisory body.
The council is scheduled to hear the study in September.
Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said last week, “If the residents don’t want the trails, we won’t build them.”
Not all Jackson Oaks residents oppose the trails idea. Nancy Lee Smereski said the neighborhood’s fears about strangers hiking up the trails to rob their homes or flick cigarette butts are overblown.
“I’m tired of them saying ‘Oh my God!’ without any proof and without any facts,” she said. “This is city land and people in the city should be able to use it.”
Kimberly Leiser sits on the Morgan Hill Parks and Recreation Commission and lives near the corner of Barrett Avenue and Trail Drive, where the Jackson Oaks trails would originate. She said the trails study – which commission members have known about for more than a year – is meant to be a blueprint for safe walking routes in hillside neighborhoods that lack sidewalks.
“There are a lot of people who walk everyday on Thomas Grade,” Leiser said, adding the steep road lacks foot paths. “While I understand the concerns about fire danger, crime and litter, I believe the intention is to provide residents who are walkers with safer routes.”
