Clarifying paved trail issues

The Nugget's October 30 story, "Public meeting will work through controversial trail issues" contained several assertions that require clarification or correction.

• A statement in the story inadvertently created confusion as to whether the Forest Service followed the letter of the law in providing legal notice of action regarding the paved trails project. Notice was provided as the law requires in The Bulletin as paper of record. Sisters District Ranger Kristie Miller acknowledged in a September 3 meeting that notice is usually also posted in The Nugget where it is accessible to the local community and that that was not done in this case.

• The story left out mention of the Sisters-to-Tollgate leg of the proposed trail. The Sisters High School-to-Crossroads trail was approved by the Forest Service in 2012. The Sisters-to-Black Butte Ranch proposed paved path is pending approval of an environmental analysis. The existing Sisters High School-to-Tollgate gravel path is not included in the proposed paved path projects.  The entire project has a cost of $2.8 million; the Sisters-Tollgate portion is estimated at

$800,000.

• Sisters Trails Alliance does not plan or intend for any portion of their trails to actually run through the Crossroads subdivision. According to STA chair Gary Guttormsen, the trail connection to Crossroads is intended to allow residents to ride from the community to Sisters High School.

• The story stated that no "scoping" letters were sent to Crossroads by the Forest Service, opening a 30-day comment period. That is not strictly correct. Miller told The Nugget that some residents and the homeowners' association board were sent scoping letters. However, the residents of subdivision as a whole did not receive scoping letters as did the residents of Tollgate.

Full clarification of all aspects of the proposed project - location, cost, funding, multi-use accessibility and other issues, was expected to come out of a November 5 community meeting, which will be reported upon in the November 13 edition of The Nugget.