Has the time come for local residents to put up locked fences on their property to keep people from destroying it?
On Sunday while Jack was unloading trash at the Transfer Station, I watched three deer grazing up on the grassy hillside, not bothered by vehicles coming and going but quite aware of us.
We see deer often near or on our property. We don’t mind the wildlife using our property, except when they eat costly plants. We do things to deter that, like sprinkling repellant around them. We don’t want to harm them.
We also don’t want to harm the tourists who visit but, like the wildlife, we don’t want them destroying our lifestyles, yet that’s what’s happening now that we are a snow destination.
Before we made it to the Transfer Station Sunday, we faced a heavily impacted area north of Pine Cove. Every nook or cranny along the roadside attracted a vehicle full of snow bunnies. Many of these left the vehicle partway on the highway.
One poor CHP officer on his loudspeaker tried to control the mobs who abandoned their vehicles to sled the hillsides and play in the snow. Hundreds of people overtook the most easily accessible snow areas, including private property.
We still don’t have answers to who is cutting down trees and bushes on private property but we know many snow visitors not only brought up their trash to leave, but their bad manners, destroying people’s plants and trespassing on their property.
What Marsha Kennedy is suggesting, that the community come together with authorities to discuss solutions, is timely and necessary. And it needs to occur here where we live, not in Riverside. I volunteer to help arrange it. Who else is game? Email me: [email protected].
Becky Clark, Editor
