Sunday, February 08, 2015

North Coast Rail Authority (NCRA) update. Billboards & Locomotives down, Trail, Parks and THA up.


I had two NCRA sub committee meetings this past week and varied topics. Just thought I would update.  
The first item of the week concerning Property Committee business was a licensing agreement with the Loleta Community Chamber to build a Loleta Park Project on NCRA property in the Rail Corridor. The NCRA property committee unanimously agreed to endorse the project to the NCRA board as a whole. Emily Sinkhorn from the Redwood Community Action Agency and Loleta Community Service District Marcus Drumm gave details to the exciting project for Loleta.
The second item was concerning a billboard on NCRA property. The sign itself is owned by Geoff Wills and he respectfully requested reconsideration or at least a “trade” of sign placement somewhere else along the rail corridor, even to maybe another county.  He agreed to remove the sign and 2 others close by at the request of the other signs owners.  
The third item was a licensing agreement with the City of Arcata for the Rails With Trails Project.  Doby Class and Netra Khatri from Arcata Public Works updated the project and the Properties committee unanimously voted to move this licensing agreement forward to the NCRA Directors . This project will start in April! Only a few months away!
On Thursday I chaired the Trial Ad Hoc Committee and two items were before us. The first was a City of Eureka Abatement notice sent to CUE, VI LLC (Security National) to remove all locomotive engines on their property. The City said they would remove and dispose and charge the land owners. Security National representative Dane Grytness was present to explain his research and his willingness to entertain all resolutions to the issue. North Western Pacific Co. (NWPco.)  President John Williams had three different solutions to the issue. 1. Hide them somewhere else. 2. Move them. 3. Put a decorative fence around them. The City of Arcata volunteered to dismantle as scrap. The board will discuss this item at a later date.
The last item was to allow NWPco. to do the inspections for the “Speeder” train excursions. We voted unanimously to endorse this item to the full board.
The next NCRA meeting will be February 11th at 10:30pm in Healdsburg, California.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's too bad, those are part of our history right there and some very interesting things to see.
That some people have to remove history is their problem they insist on inflicting on the rest of us in some definition of 'clean'. It's a cheap petty way of looking accomplished.

We should embrace and feature our interesting history, not bulldoze it and scrap it. Move to LA if one doesn't like NW history.

Anonymous said...

Same could be said for the homeless camps at the foot of Del Norte.

Julie Timmons said...

Thanks, Richard.