Trails and Errors

After reading Eric Bailey’s article regarding the horse trails (“Trail Advocates Push to Get Development Plan Back on Track,” July 19), I felt I must respond. I was a member of the ad hoc committee on trails appointed by the Board of Supervisors in 1981.

We recommended to the board that mandatory dedication be changed to voluntary dedication, which we believed it should have been from the beginning, knowing that many property owners resented being told they must give 20 feet of their property for these trails.

We were protecting property rights for the horsemen as well as other property owners. They are free to ride on their own property as well as the property of anyone who gives them permission, on public easements and on government property, of which there is an abundance. These private property rights are guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of our Constitution.

If there are so many horse riders, as they claim, they should be able to get enough money from their own contributions to pay for what they want. If the voluntary dedication isn’t working, it must be because property owners do not want to give their property. And by what manner of common sense should they be required to, and should the horsemen demand that they do?

Contrary to what the horsemen seem to be saying, the liability issue has never been solved, particularly since all riders cannot be depended on to stay on the trails at all times.

In all our meetings, we never heard one hiker express a desire to hike on horse trails! I have heard reports since that hikers don’t want to hike there because of the “droppings” and flies caused by horses. What about cyclists? How can they keep them off?

These questions were all asked and never solved. The correlation of horse trails to public roads is too nonsensical to warrant comment. What is wrong with people “getting in their cars and going to the store and home again,” if that is what they want to do?

And, if a developer is “tickled pink and overjoyed to provide trails,” he is certainly free to do so. By the same token, if he should desire to not do so, he should be free to refuse. It is his property, his nickels and his sweat that enabled him to buy this land. The statement that “we’re not taking anything from anyone” is erroneous, as that is just what they are proposing to do.

I would recommend that these horsemen be responsible for their own recreation and not expect other people to provide it for them.

MRS. ALVA V. SNIDER

Fallbrook