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Caspar Community Meeting minutes : : 11 April 1999 meeting
"Using Our Headlands"
As has become traditional, the circle of residents introduced themselves. Pat Ackley, Community Coordinator, gave a brief report on upcoming events. Michael Potts and Vince Taylor also spoke about upcoming events and plans.
Patty Madigan led a discussion of the possible uses of Caspar's headlands, organized around the following topics:
- What do we know?
- What do we need to find out?
- How do we want people to access/interface with the headlands?
- Headlands walk
Stuart Tregoning spoke about what we know about the headlands: We know that lumber was loaded onto ships (dog-hole schooners) off the second point; remains of the loading stage can still be seen. In Stuart's youth, he remembers the railroad yard with the engines rusting before being sold, the Caspar dump and lumber yard, the Cookhouse and single men's cabins along the street, the meat market and main road to the mill. With some help from other long-time residents, the date of the conversion to cattle was placed in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Paul and Nancy Tulley lived in a succession of houses just about to be demolished. Oscar Smith made a cursory attempt to clean up after the bunker oil tanks in the eucalyptus grove in the early 1990s. The land was apparently graded before any of us can remember - steep terraces made steeper and flat areas enlarged for stacking milled lumber. The first terrace is thought to be good soil. Because of the grading and roads, there are soil/rock and drainage issues.
We listed a few of the issues which need to be researched more fully:
- Is the site of the oil tanks "clean"?
- Endangered species - is, was, or could be?
- Native American artifacts/significance
- Inventory of habitat/species/soil types, etc.
- What's in the dump?
- What is the whale watching potential from the headland?
- What is the status of gorse on the headlands?
- Soils - stability and other concerns
- Location of historic mill "fixtures"
- Current soil and hydrologic surveys
Volunteers offered to research several of these issues more fully, and make their findings available to the community through the Coordinator.
How do we want people to access and interface with the headlands? We brainstormed a list of possible scenarios or considerations, many of which overlap, and then voted with red dots:
- Walking access and trails - (10 "red dots")
- Posting the rules
- Large areas of habitat protected/preserved - (9 "dots")
- Policies regarding animals - cows, dogs...?
- Restoration - keeping out gorse - (7 dots)
- Address parking issues - overnight? - (2 dots)
- Access for disabled
- Recreation management through a community services district
- Access to sport fishing- yes/no?
- Frisbee and Kite access - (2 dots)
As can be seen, many of these choices were not regarded as iomportant by those in attendance, but are acknowledged as important to others who have used the headlands in the past, or might want to in the future.
Finally, we considered the question, Who will manage the headlands? We came up with three possible models, but as can be seen the voting wasn't enthusiastic. Of 20+ people present, only 5 dots were cast, as follows:
- State Parks - (2 dots)
- Community Services District - (3 dots)
- Nonprofit - (0 dots)
After snacks and friendly informal discussion, most of those present took a walk on the headlands to explore the land. Among those walking were Caspar natives who had not walked the headlands for decades, and Caspar-raised children who had never walked on the headlands.
Attendance: 27
submitted by Patty Madigan and Michael Potts
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