By Jesus Beltran

To: Will Fourt, Senior Project Planner, Reimagining Big Basin Project

Hi Will,

My name is Jesus Beltran and I have lived a few miles from the old Big Basin Redwoods State Park headquarters since 2017. I used to visit the Park on an almost weekly basis, logging hundreds of miles on its fire roads on my mountain bike and taking visitors at any opportunity. I feel a special connection to the park and miss my meditative bike rides through its majestic and sacred landscapes.

2020 changed that – first due to the Park shutdowns for COVID, then of course the CZU fire. The fire swept through my own property, but I am one of the lucky ones. Through the heroic efforts of CalFire and BCVFD, my home survived. As you know, hundreds of families are still out of their homes, trying to rebuild and get back to a normal sense of life. I can’t imagine what they’ve gone through and are continuing to have to deal with.

Because my home survived and I live so close to the park on the 236, I’ve seen and heard countless service vehicles pass my property in their efforts to assess Park damage, remove hazards, and repair infrastructure. It’s been a massive undertaking and I applaud the efforts of the California State Parks team to move rapidly and return to the park to its former – or even greater glory.

I’ve also been following the Reimagining Big Basin Project (the ‘Project’) as closely as possible and trying to stay on top of developments. I’ve attended the last two Project Zoom forums and recently watched the pre-recording of the first one. There’s a lot of information to take in, and if you really care about this project, it requires a commitment of time and energy to process and analyze.

Generally speaking, I am in alignment with the Project’s guiding principles as stated on its website:

• Land Management
• Indigenous Knowledge
• Aesthetic, Reverent Design
• Leadership in Resilient Park Planning
• Connectivity and Coordination
• Equitable, Diverse and Evocative Visitor Experiences
• Creating New Memories and New Stewards
• Communication

The three forums have touched on most of these items clearly and offered insight into what the Park may look and feel like in the future – and why. However, I believe that two of the guiding principles have been lacking in both content and effort, namely Connectivity and Coordination and Communication.

Connectivity and Coordination

As stated on the Reimagining website, “The CZU Lightning Complex fire demonstrated the permeability of the park boundaries and the importance of internal and external connections between land managers, agencies, and the public. Reestablishing Big Basin as a safe, resilient, and accessible Park will necessitate establishing a physical framework of roads and trails that connects Park with surrounding lands and coordinating with park neighbors and managers across the region and landscape to resilient and effective relationships.”

I strongly believe that this Project has not been coordinating or establishing resilient and effective relationships with neighbors and regional managers. There’s only one way into the park HQ – HWY 9 and either the north or south 236 entry points. That said, I consider neighbors to be not just residents like myself who are right next door – but anyone in the SLV corridor who will be impacted by changes to the park that will impact total visitor count and traffic flow to the region.

The State has formed two committees to guide the Project – a Steering Committee and an Advisory Committee. The steering committee comprised of State Parks Staff – appears to be comprised of 9 State Parks employees all based in Sacramento. The second committee, an Advisory Committee appointed by state executives – is comprised of another 9 people. Of these 9, only one single person is from Boulder Creek – or even the entire San Lorenzo Valley for that matter. Add to this the fact that she is representing the Mountain Parks Foundation – not the community and it’s concerns from a broad perspective. This seems like a glaring oversight that needs immediate correction.

The project should add three more committee members to the Advisory Committee comprised of SLV locals representing our varied interests and concerns.

It should also be stated that none of the topics covered during the Zoom meetings, or experts who spoke, focused on impact to current local communities. All topics were concerned with internal park planning. This also seems like a glaring oversight. Every single forum should include local community impact as a critical component to planning and decision making.

Communication

As stated on the Reimagining website, “Transparent and consistent communication will educate and inform the public, stakeholders, and partners of the park’s conditions and recovery. The reestablishment process will allow for continued dialogue with the public and foster support for the park and the special location it protects. Expectations for re-opening and for the future experiences the park will offer will be guided by clear, honest, and engaging communication.”

While I don’t believe there has been willful intent to not communicate with public stakeholders, I strongly believe that the communication strategy and efforts have been poor and ineffective at reaching the SLV community and stakeholders.

The Project has had three zoom meetings and from what I could tell given live surveys during these meetings, we haven’t had a lot of locals on them. When I asked a neighbors group on Facebook (Boulder Creek Neighbors on Feb 22, 2022) if they knew about the process, and whether they wanted more information – I got resounding feedback that people didn’t even know about the Zoom meetings and wanted to be more involved. Almost two hundred people liked my post as an acknowledgment of wanting to be more involved and almost fifty people commented with more detail. I have attached screen grabs of this Facebook post to this letter for the Project’s review.

Additionally, the Project has hosted 6 pop-up events to spread information on the Reimagining project. One was online and five (5) were in person. Of the in-person events, two (2) were in Santa Cruz, two (2) were in Oakland, and one (1) was in Daly City. Nothing (0) in Boulder Creek, Brookdale, Ben Lomond, Felton, or Scotts Valley. This also seems like a glaring oversight.

The Project should host an in-person community forum with a live webcast asap. There are many community members who want this and who are willing to help spread the word and assist as needed.

Additionally, every outreach effort going forward should include intentionally targeted communication for the local community. If this means we have separate meetings or forums for locals, maybe that makes sense. I understand there are forums for internal park planning that could be subdivided out, but there definitely needs to be some local community focus and overlap.

Internal planning will result in major decisions involving park infrastructure (roads, relocation of headquarters, visitors center, campgrounds, parking, water, waste management, transportation, etc) that could have significant impact to not only close neighbors but everyone in the SLV region. Thirty thousand people call SLV home. We need to ensure that we are guiding Park development in a way that shares this beautiful park with our international community of visitors while ensuring impact on our day-to-day lives is considered seriously.

The screenshot below with the ‘Initial Visioning roadmap’ taken from the last Zoom meeting, states that the Project’s engagement with the community for this phase is slated to go from Fall 2021 to Winter 2022. The moderators on the last Feb 17 Zoom also stated that that would be the last workshop. According to this roadmap, the Project is just about done with this phase.

Given that the zoom meetings failed to effectively reach locals and more importantly, failed to even address local concerns, and that the Project has had zero local in-person outreach, I highly recommend that the Project extend the ‘initial visioning’ phase at least one quarter to allow for effective local community education and feedback.

To reiterate, I believe the Project should:

1. add three more committee members to the Advisory Committee comprised of SLV locals representing our varied interests and concerns.
2. host an in-person community forum with a live webcast asap. Additionally, going forward, the Project should include specifically targeted communications and updates for local interests and concerns.
3. extend the ‘initial visioning’ phase beyond Winter of 2022, at least one quarter, to allow for more community input and review of planning and efforts thus far.

This is an urgent request and I eagerly await your reply, ready to assist however I can.

Respectfully,

Jesus Beltran, Boulder Creek

Cc:
Armando Quintero, Director, California State Parks
Chris Spohrer, Santa Cruz District Superintendent,
California State Parks Anna Eshoo, US Congresswoman, California 18th District
John Laird,CA State Senator, 17th District
Mark Stone, CA State Assembly Member, 29th District
Bruce McPherson, Fifth District Supervisor, Santa Cruz County

Featured photo by Nick Rickert