Sebastopol to consider Laguna de Santa Rosa wetlands contract

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The Sebastopol City Council will be asked Tuesday night to approve an $89,200 contract to help update and enhance management of more than 80 acres of city-owned property known collectively as the Laguna de Santa Rosa Wetlands Preserve.
The goal of the new management plan, first and foremost, is to ensure adequate protection of sensitive wildlife habitat and other environmental resources that are central to efforts to preserve and restore the expansive waterway.
But city officials also hope to identify opportunities to better link to one another the six properties that make up the preserve with the city’s urban core and with potential users. Officials hope to create a more cohesive identity, perhaps aided by uniform signs and more trails.
“There are some connectivity problems and challenges with these different properties and how they can be knit together and at least identified in some common way,” said city Planning Director Kenyon Webster.
Additional trail development would fit nicely with ongoing community discussion about increased walkability and connectivity between downtown, the new Barlow commercial center and the Laguna Preserve. A multiuse trail on the east side of the channel, opened two years ago by Sonoma County Regional Parks, is very popular.
Read more via Sebastopol to consider Laguna de Santa Rosa contract | The Press Democrat.