At the November 16 board meeting, we voted unanimously to approve the $100,000 contract for the environmental impact report (EIR) on the proposed Pines to Mines multi-use trail, which will connect Nevada City and Truckee. The trail, once completed, will be a world class trail. I’m disappointed that we ended up excluding a review of E-bikes in the EIR, especially given that they are already using the trail, but remain hopeful that the end product will be a trail that people will come from far and wide to traverse.
Earlier this fall, we approved an overnight camping ban on Champion Mine Road in an effort to address safety issues that were repeatedly being reported down there, including trash, human waste and campfires. Ultimately, Champion Mine Road is a fairly narrow road that lacks infrastructure to properly accommodate camping, such as parking areas, toilets and trash receptacles.
Additionally, I’ve been working in collaboration with County staff to advocate for increased resources for our public land managers at US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. These two agencies manage a significant amount of land in Nevada County, including in and around the Yuba River corridor. Through my leadership of the Yuba River Public Safety Cohort, of which those two federal agencies are members, I frequently hear about their lack of sufficient staffing, including among their law enforcement staff, and it is concerning. The US Forest Service’s Tahoe National Forest and Bureau of Land Management Lands are essentially our backyard here in Nevada County and I want to do what I can to help the local representatives of those agencies get the resources they need. As part of this advocacy effort, and as the Board’s representative to the National Association of Counties (NACo), I attended NACo’s Western Interstate Region conference, where public land management was a major topic. As a recently appointed member of the Public Lands Committee, I spoke briefly with Randy Moore, Chief of the US Forest Service, who knew about the work of the Yuba River Cohort as a model of shared stewardship and collaboration.