by: Friends of Bidwell Park
Re: Comment on Draft Bidwell Park Master Management Plan and Environmental Impact Report
The Equestrian Center building should be included in this list of facilities.
The Rod & Gun Club is missing from this list. The Chico Equestrian Center is variously called horse arena, Chico Equestrian Association Arena, Equestrian Center and other similar names throughout this document. Naming for this facility should be standardized. It consists of a large riding arena, a small training arena and a building.
In other places in the text of both documents, the BLM land is described as 40 acres not 38 (technically the land was purchased from Planning and Conservation League, which purchased land from BLM). Please be consistent.
Should identify location of Camellia Way Park. Deer pen label should be closer to the actual deer pen location.
"...nearly the entire is identified as an (RCA)." Please provide a map that shows specifically which parts of the park are RCAs and which are not. For those areas that are not RCA, indicate their designations.
Please explain why the entire park has not been surveyed for cultural resources.
Does the 80 miles of trails include only official trails or also unofficial trails and trails that are not shown on any of the MMP maps, such as the creekside trails in Lower Park the north rim fenceline trail, the small trails in the Cedar Grove area and the trails through the disc golf course area? How was this trail distance calculated?
Please make sure that the list of buildings, mentioned in many places in this document, contains the same buildings and follows the same naming convention, e.g. visitor/nature center in 2.4.1 versus 2.4.1.1 Chico Creek Nature Center.
Construction of the outdoor seating area has been completed. Please note this and include construction date.
Please provide written documentation regarding your statement that "Disc golf has occurred on the 40 (or is it 38 acres?-be consistent!) acres of..." Is there anything in the City Council or BPPC minutes or staff reports at the time the land was purchased to document this use? What other uses were taking place on this property at that time and at what intensity of use?
There is also a parking lot at the Equestrian Center
The Equestrian Center parking lot has been left out of this table.
There's an additional access point for Upper Park that's frequently used by hikers and bikers who do a car shuttle, namely the small parking lot where Centennial Ave becomes Chico Canyon Road.
The correct name of the property owner to the north is CSU, Chico Research Foundation.
Please update the maintenance staff and Rangers numbers to current levels. Please add the volunteer coordinator position.
The local organization is Altacal Audubon Society, not Audubon Society. Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve is listed twice. It's California Native Plant Society, not Plants and Kiwanis Chico Community Observatory (according to their web site). Ensemble Theatre of Chico and Shakespeare in the Park are the same organization (and, by the way, they're no longer using Bidwell Park). Chico Mountain Bikers should be added (they both ride and provide trail maintenance in the park). It's Sierra Club Yahi Group.
Implementation Strategies and Guidelines 1.NC-1 If "High priority shall be given to protecting sensitive habitats such as vernal pools, wet meadows, ..." then why aren't weren't these areas mapped as part of the MMP/EIR? If "high priority" allows the destruction of 4 vernal pools in the disc golf project, then it's a meaningless term.
"Protect shallow Park soils from incompatible recreation activities, especially where the soils support sensitive plant populations." The disc golf area has both shallow soils and sensitive plant populations. Does this objective only apply to other parts of Bidwell Park?
"For the purposes of the BPMMP, non-intensive uses are defined as uses that generally do not result in substantial disturbance or removal of natural (e.g., plants, wildlife, soils, hydrology), cultural, visual, aesthetic or other resources individually or cumulatively. Examples of non- intensive uses include trails in most areas, well-designed trails in sensitive areas, swimming in natural creek settings, nature observation, and limited amounts of off-trail foot traffic in non- sensitive areas."
Please explain how an activity like disc golf is non-intensive, especially since it doesn't meet any of these criteria.
"Annie's Glen should be connected..." This project has been approved by the City Council, is in the 08/09 city budget, and has identified funding sources. What more that this does it take to get a "shall' not a "should" designation?
Appendix E Trails Plan (page 1)
Please correct acreage information in first paragraph. Bidwell Park is not the largest park per capita. See http://www.tpl.org/content_documents/ccpe_100LargestCityParks.pdf.
"both official and unmitigated" Shouldn't this be "official and unofficial"?
In the last paragraph, it's called Easter Cross, not Easter Day cross.