MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Area Town Hall’s meeting last week hosted a discussion on the process for planning the recovery of Trailside Park and its future uses.
            
Lake County Public Services Director Lars Ewing spoke to the group May 11 about what’s ahead for the 107-acre park, which was entirely burned over by the Valley fire in September 2015.

“We don't have anything set in stone,” he said, explaining that he was there more for receiving input than telling community members what the park will be, as he believes the ultimate vision belongs to them.

Ewing, who formerly worked in the county’s Public Works Department, took on the director role with Public Services after the Valley fire. By that time, the park already had been destroyed.

He said an arborist assessed the trees that remained in the park after the fire and the decision was made to remove them.

The tree removal has three phases, Ewing said.

The first phase was conducted under a contract with AshBritt Inc. of Deerfield Beach, Fla. Ewing said that phase removed trees that posed hazards to the park’s existing trails.

After that phase, a majority of the park’s damaged trees were still standing. Ewing said the county received a California Department of Labor grant through California Human Development Corp. for the next phase of tree removal.

He said the third tree removal phase is now under way, and is between two and two and a half months from being completed.

That phase includes chipping trees for use as trail surfacing, he said.

The park has now been cleared as much as it can be, Ewing said.

In looking ahead, Ewing noted, “It's not going to be the park that it was.”

He said the foresters he’s spoken to – including Greg Giusti, the retired director of the University of California Cooperative Extension in Lake County – have said it won’t be a pine forest if it’s left to grow up on its own. Rather, it will be oak and manzanita and will take time to grow back on its own.

In response to a question asked later in the meeting about those trees, Ewing said the oaks and manzanitas will thrive and won’t require a specific replanting like the pines.

Ewing said his department plans to hold a public meeting about the park. At the same time, they’ve been contacted by a number of individuals with interest in that park for various uses – arts in the park, trails, bocce ball, equestrian uses, baseball fields and playgrounds.

“It's a big park,” he said, with leads to the possibility of many different uses.

There also is the underlying assumption that it's a nature preserve. Ewing said the county purchased the park land under a state Proposition 70 grant, meant to support parks and open space.

Ewing said they needed to look back at legislative intent of the funds. He said the state said the funds can be used for general park purposes, and that Proposition 70’s intent was not explicitly for the purposes of open space, nature and wildland preserves.

However, Ewing said he also doesn’t want to assume that they can do anything with the property, which is why they’ve asked the state to review the legislative intent.

He said they are dealing with a unique circumstance due to the fire. “It created a clean slate on that park.”

Now to be considered is what can be done given the conditions of that grant and in light of the new circumstances, Ewing said.

The Lake County Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee will meet on June 7 to discuss countywide issues. Ewing said it will be an open meeting and a notice will be sent out. He said it’s the first time he’s convened the group in his tenure as director.

“The focus is going to be Trailside Park and the area of Middletown and Cobb, where we have the need for parks,” Ewing said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not just handing out money, said Ewing, adding, “We're not going to get a free park.”

Ewing said the second step will be holding a public forum to look at the park’s needs.

During the meeting he was asked about a roughly 10-acre area of the park where trees burned in the fire have been left standing.

Ewing said that the intent of that area was to look at a possible memorial or natural regeneration project. He said the decision was made not to cut down that group of trees but to see what it would look like if it came back on its own.

He said he got the idea during a visit to the Grand Canyon. Ewing saw an area there where a fire had occurred about 20 years ago. It features interpretive signs showing how things came back, which he said was informative and impactful.

He added that he’s also open to not having such an area in the park if the community is against it.

Another area of the park, about 10 to 15 acres in size, is the site of the Lake Area Rotary Club Association’s tree replanting project. Ewing said an area right in the middle of the park was identified where the trees would grow.

In late March, the Rotary project, with the help of hundreds of volunteers from around Northern California, about 4,000 ponderosa pines were planted in that portion of the park, as Lake County News has reported.

Ewing also was asked about at-risk trees across from the park which currently are waiting to be removed. Ewing said those trees – about 1,000 of them – are marked and awaiting approval of FEMA. The county has a contractor lined up to do the work.

The issue of when the trails at the park will be reopened to walking and horseback riding also was raised. Ewing said he wants to wait until hazard trees are removed and it’s safe before allowing use of those areas again.

During the discussion other potential uses were raised for the park, including Robert Battaile’s suggestion of bocce courts for the Middletown Bocce League.

Battaile said the club wants to be close to the park’s restrooms and have lighting. Ewing said getting power to that area will be a challenge.

Another proposed use is for the park included a stadium and play fields for the Middletown and Cobb Little League, which a group representative said could get grants and funding for those facilities.

Ewing said the county can masterplan itself to death and then the plans get shelved due to lack of funding. He said the county is extremely strapped for cash, so he said it will require thinking outside of the box – such as that suggested by the Little League – to find ways to pay for park amenities.

However, another community remember reminded the audience that the original intent at the time the park was purchased was to keep it natural. She pointed out that, because of that condition, community members had spoken out against locating the dormitory for Hope City volunteers involved in the fire recovery and rebuilding effort at the park.

Ewing told Lake County News this week that the Lake County Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday, June 7.

The meeting will begin at Trailside Park before reconvening in the community room at the Middletown Library, he said.

He said he expected the meeting topics to include a broad discussion of county park issues, with a focus on Trailside Park.

Ewing said the full agenda hasn’t been set yet, but will be sent out to the community ahead of the meeting.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.