For those readers interested in preserving Weber County trails system access rights, we'll highlight an item in this morning's Standard-Examiner, involving Ogden Valley's Wolf Canyon Trail. Here's Di Lewis's lede:
POWDER MOUNTAIN — A popular Ogden Valley hiking trail on a public easement has been bulldozed into a wide swath and may become private property for part of the year.Check out the full story here:
The Wolf Canyon Trail leads to 160 acres of public land via an easement on private property that is part of an out-of-bounds area of Powder Mountain.
The trail is part of the Weber Pathways system and a popular destination for summer and winter outdoor enthusiasts. A public hearing and vote on closing public access for part of the year is on the Weber County Commission’s Tuesday meeting agenda.
Eden resident Alan Wheelwright said it is sad to see the trail destroyed and turned into a 15-footwide track.
The resort has the right to modify the trail as long as public access is preserved, said Curtis Christensen, Weber County engineer. The easement doesn’t exclude the rights of private-property owners, he said.
“They are requesting that, during the wintertime, they rescind the public rights because there is some avalanche control that needs to take place there. Plus, it may interfere with other uses, such as a ski tour,” he said.
• Access to trail at issue - Public use of area may face restrictionsAs Weber County outdoor enthusiasts will recall, this trail leads to the controversial 160-acre parcel once owned by Rulon Jones, former linebacker for the Denver Broncos. It is now back in public ownership, thanks to a group of residents of Ogden Valley who sued the County and took the case all the way to the Utah Supreme Court where they prevailed.
For those readers who might be keen on addressing this issue, and opposing any County Commission action which would limit the lumpencitizens' hard-earned easement rights to this important feature in our Weber County trails system, it might not be a bad idea to attend this Tuesday's commission session.
Although we couldn't find Tuesday's commission agenda on the county website, we'll remind our readers that County Commission meetings are generally held most Tuesday mornings (unless otherwise publicly noticed) at 10:00 a.m. in the County Commission Chambers, 2380 Washington Boulevard, Ogden.
If you'd like to verify the exact time of Tuesday's meeting, call the Weber County Commission office at (801) 399-8406.
We believe Ogden Valley resident Robert Fuller gets it exactly right:
“Keeping it open is in the public’s best interest,” he said. “(Restricting access) is a chance for a profit entity to utilize public land. It’s just another way of closing people out of public lands.We thus encourage our steely-eyed WCF readers to show up at Tuesday's meeting en masse.
“They’re whittling down time the public can use it, which is the point of having it there. There is [an] absolute right of the public to use that, and it’s a bad idea to intimidate the public out of using it.”
Update 12/14/09 10:47 a.m.: We've checked with the Weber County Commission office, and the above-referenced public is indeed set for 10:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, December 15, 2009, at the above-indicated Council Commission chamber venue.
Ogden Valley Forum is also covering this story too, and raises the question why notice of this meeting has not been posted on the county website, pursuant to the 24-hour notice requirement prescribed by Utah state law.
Weber County officials do inform us that the meeting agenda has been posted on the Utah State website however (see paragraph F, item 2), but offer no explanation as to its absence from the county site, (although we will submit off the cuff that the the Commission is probably thus in adequate compliance with necessary public notice requirements).
For those readers who can't make it to the meeting, here's the County Commission's bulk email contact link, so our readers can register their opinions about this ham-handed landgrab with all commissioners beforehand:
shalasy@co.weber.ut.us(Be sure to specify in you email that you'd like copies distributed to ALL commission members.)
