News
Sept. 2004 President's Message
From HNCLT President Gail Kenny
It is time for our annual general meeting, election of Trustees, and membership renewals. Our general meeting is scheduled for Sunday, September 19th at 2:00 at Trinidad Town Hall.
The Trinidad Museum Society will share with us plans for the new Museum building which will possibly be shared with the library on property which Glenn and Janis Saunders recently deeded to the land trust.
Preparation for receiving the Saunders' property was one of the major items on our Trustee meeting agendas this past year. It began with Glenn and Janis asking if the land trust would be willing to hold title to the property. The Saunders wishes were for a Trinidad community group to hold title to the property, and since our group is already set-up to hold property we seriously considered this opportunity and service to the community. In reviewing our charter, it was determined that we had to amend it to specifically include holding property for a museum and library. We added the following phrase to our charter with the approval of general membership during a December special meeting: "to acquire, hold, use and develop land for public access, trails; for a library, museum, park, garden, or space for interpretative, educational, or contemplative benefit of the public;." Finally, on July 8 after everything was in order, there was a special ceremony where Glenn and Janis Saunders signed their gift of the property over to the land trust. This land is a very generous gift to the Trinidad community, and all the time and money the Saunders donated to this effort. The community will benefit from their generosity for years to come. We are still working finalizing an easement to the City of Trinidad for a park and the Trinidad Museum Society is working on a contract with the land trust regarding their use of the property.
The on-going legal wrangling with John Frame over an easement we own on his property which accesses the old Indian Beach Trail continued in earnest this year. In the fall, a fence was put across the easement closing the access to the trail. It remained for about a month until a judge determined it should come down. The fence was the result of an agreement with Mr. Frame and the City of Trinidad over the trail adjacent to Frame's property. This agreement was challenged by the State of California in addition to the land trust. This issue will go to trial which is currently scheduled for January 2005. Many thanks to attorney Tom Becker for his help on this.
Houda Point will soon have a new sign, compliments of the Bureau of Land Management which has grant funding for educational signs regarding the off shore sea stacks. We have been working closely with the local BLM office on the text, artwork and structure for the new sign.
We reviewed the Draft Management Plan for Clam and Moonstone Beaches that Humboldt County has in the works. We attended a few meetings on this and submitted our comments to the County on the plan for Moonstone Beach. We have been planning for an upgrade to the Moonstone Beach parking lot for several years. The county owns a portion of the parking lot and Sam Merryman owns the other part which we own an easement on. We are in agreement with the county plan on upgrades to the parking lot, including bathrooms. We also acknowledge there is a dog problem at Moonstone beach and support having dogs on leash on the dry sand and people picking up after their dogs at this heavily used beach. The next step will be to coordinate with the county in applying for grant funding for the parking lot upgrade.
Did everyone see our new brochure? Matthew Marshall with Ned Simmons' help created a new brochure which we can all be proud of. It has wonderful photos which Matthew took, along with eye catching graphics. In fact, it caught the eye of a local web designer who has offered to create and host a web site for the Humboldt North Coast Land Trust. I had been planning for months to get going on that project, so I was very pleased to get a phone call from someone volunteering to do this for us. I am now working with Mitch Trachtenberg on the project.
Talking about volunteers, I want to thank Nina Groth and Loren Smith on their service as Trustees. They will be missed. We will be welcoming at least two new Trustees, one of which will be appointed to fill Loren Smith's unfinished term, this year and will probably have a couple of veterans (including me) continue. Please be sure to vote and mail your ballot back to the land trust by September 18.
I look forward to seeing you at the meeting in September.
Sincerely,
Gail Kenny
President
