Camp Meeker Beat: United we stand
A Camp Meeker character and some interesting ideas for the forest
As a part of our new Saturday Towns column, we’re thrilled to welcome Camp Meeker columnist Tom Austin.
Auntie Em! I just had the strangest dream. And you were there! And you were there! And you were there!
The strange dream was that the late and very much beloved Sonoma County Gazette has gone the way of all flesh after many, many years of serving the community. Many thanks to editors Vesta Copestakes, Amie Windsor, and Roger Coryell for doing such an outstanding job with the Town columns, many of which have now moved here to the Sebastopol Times. Today, the Camp Meeker Beat joins in.
Let me tell you a little about myself. I moved to Sonoma County in 1995 and to Camp Meeker in 1999. Around 2004, I started writing the Camp Meeker column for the now-defunct Russian River Monthly. After that paper folded, I moved over to the Gazette and stayed there until March of this year. Until last year, I was a mechanical engineer, working at many places around the Bay Area. I am now retired and able to devote my full attention to this column, as well as all the other things I enjoy—writing, playing music, and walking…slowly…up and down the hills and trails of the West County.
When I first moved to Sonoma County, The Big City meant San Francisco. Now I have wised up, and The Big City is Sebastopol with all 7,400 of its people. It’s a good life.
On the run
One Camp Meeker resident who is working very, very hard to make life better for the world is Kyle Gift. He’s the lanky, sometimes bare-chested drink of water you see running and working out along Bohemian Highway come rain or shine. Or you might know him as one of the cornerstones of the Ivy League—that mysterious and ad hoc collective given to beautifying and fire-hardening Camp Meeker by removing invasive species and underbrush. They donate copious amounts of sweat equity to our forest, which grows more beautiful every day as a result of their indefatigable efforts.
Speaking of indefatigable, Kyle has run numerous epic distance runs while literally carrying the flag with a picture of the Earth and the words, “United we stand, divided we fall.” He has run from Occidental to Black Mountain (that’s between Cazadero and Fort Ross); Occidental to Mt. St. Helena; Occidental to San Francisco (that’s a three-day run, sports fans), and last but not least a swim/run from Alcatraz to Twin Peaks in San Francisco. No word on whether Kyle was able to carry his flag during the swim portion.
On each of his epic adventures, Kyle speaks words of peace and unity under the flag he brandishes as a rallying point. And Heaven knows we need us some rallying points.
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News from the Camp Meeker Recreation and Park District
Camp Meeker is unincorporated so it doesn’t have a city council. Rather, it keeps on chooglin’ due in no small part to the hard work of the Park and Rec Board (henceforth, “the Board”), which generally meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 7 pm.
If you live in Camp Meeker, I would absolutely recommend that you go to the campmeeker.org website and navigate to the CMRPD Board of Directors page, and within that to the Board Meeting schedule, where you will find the aforementioned agenda and minutes pages for the monthly Board meeting.
NEW FACES AND CHANGING PLACES. The Board (and we) give a hearty welcome to new Board member Christy Bongardt, who was appointed in January to replace retiring Board member Valery Larson. Christy moved out here from Rohnert Park during COVID and is busily making herself useful. Welcome!
In other board news, board secretary Katie Sherwin replaces the long-serving Cheryl Doran-Girard. Cheryl, and now Katie, is responsible for the Board Meeting agenda and minutes, from which I derive such a large part of my content for this column. Katie, standing on Cheryl’s giant shoulders, has further improved the usefulness of these documents. Within the meeting minutes, there are often hyperlinks to important documents under review or consideration by the Board. I will now expound a little on two such hyperlinked documents.
IDEAS FOR THE FOREST
The first one is a Forest Management Plan created for St. Dorothy’s in 2012, when St. Dorothy’s purchased the property from the Chenoweth family. This is not necessarily the plan that Camp Meeker will follow, but it serves as a starting point and a summary of the pertinent information regarding the history and geography of the property, as well as a summary of the potential work that might need to be done in order to meet Camp Meeker’s various goals: access, safety, forest restoration, and so forth. It’s really a remarkable document, and well worth the read.
The second document is entitled Scope of Work for Camp Meeker Rec & Park District, and it is much more recent and much more specific. It describes six treatment types proposed for various portions of the district—timber harvest, mastication, burn unit preparation, broadcast burn, site preparation, and planting—and it contains maps showing where the given treatments are proposed. Mastication, as you probably know, means chewing, not that other thing. (Cool your jets.) But in the forestry world, mastication means reducing the size of forest vegetation and downed material by grinding, shredding, chunking or chopping.
This work is primarily being driven by the goal of increasing wildfire safety. That’s where the money comes from: the agencies that are potentially funding this work are driven by that priority. However, as part of these efforts, there is an opportunity to restore forests and improve access and safety based on a smart tactical approach to wildfire defense. As one example, road improvements are needed to perform the wildfire defense work, but if done right will reduce soil erosion among other benefits. Again, a remarkable document full of useful information about the state of the forest today and a look ahead at the future Camp Meeker Forest.
If you have been to Arcata’s community forest, you will see an example of this work done right. We could do worse than use that precious gem as an example.
Great to have you back Tom and to hear about my favorite forest.