Expressing concerns on the proposed trail

Regarding the Electric City trail, with the (Jan. 20) meeting being at 1:00 in the afternoon and I work for a living, I cannot make it. I wish for this letter to be my thoughts and my opinion on this matter. Now, I’m no letter writer, so I’m just going to use the format of listing my concerns and thoughts.

1. It seems to me it would make more financial sense to widen and fix the road to have this trail. We would only be dealing with the State of Washington (D.O.T.) and the cities involved, plus we would be fixing, like one stated in The Star, a dangerous part of road for all. Please do the math, and if the students need something to do they could help with this. Why are we upsetting the people that voted you into office when there is another way to have this trail?

2. Makes more financial tourism sense to have this trail on roadway versus behind homes and hidden; people would be able to stop their bikes or stop walking and have lunch, coffee, ice cream and spend their money in our little cities. What are they going to buy where you have this trail drawn? We should be bringing funds into our towns along the way.

3. If this trail goes through, I would like to ask, do our property taxes go down? Right now, we are paying for waterfront; if a trail is there, this will no longer be true, so there is some more loss of funds for the schools, city, libraries, fire departments, state of Washington.

4. I, for one, do not understand why we as property owners have to lose our privacy, sense of safety. Some of our back yards we have grown to love and have maintained for years (would now go) for a trail when it could go elsewhere alongside the highway, like most bike/walking trails.

Now for my concerns with said trail:

1. Will there be privacy/security fencing for our back yards? As a mother of two females and one female granddaughter, I don’t need sex predators, child molesters, old men watching (them) sunbathe or us in our back yards from this trail.

2. Litter/drug debris, needles — who cleans this trail so we as property owners can safely get across it to fish and boat, and where are these funds coming from for this cleanup and dump fees?

3. Will the trail have time closures? Or do we worry 24/7 (about) people being behind our homes at any and all times going by?

4. Is it going to be built for all, as in handicap friendly? Because there are special codes and laws for this to be included in the building of this trail.

5. Can golf carts go on this trail? Because, again, (there are) special codes and laws for building such trails for battery and gasoline carts.

6. Dogs? Leash laws, will they be enforced? By whom? Dog poop, will that be taken care of in front of our homes so we don’t have to walk through it to fish or boat, and where would a dog owner put it? Worried (about) dogs running loose; someone could get bitten.

7. Our family and friends camp at Sunbanks Lake Resort and Coulee Playland. At SunBanks, all cars, boats and water toys are tagged to match your campsite; how is one going to be sure non-camping people don’t come down the trail and go into the resort and listen to the music, enjoy the stuff our camping fees pay for and/or steal from us in the middle of the night at either campground? We have always been proud that Sunbanks is a private resort and everything you need is on site.

We were informed around 24 months ago by the Bureau of Reclamation that we were not allowed man-made items in front of our properties; would this not be a man-made item? One would think to promote tourism, why not build something that brings in funds, such as a water park, water slide, or pool — something everyone could and would enjoy and that would bring monies back into the city?

Billie Hasenwinkle