The following is a letter to the editor, published here as opinion. The opinions expressed in this letter are those of the writer. If you would like to submit a letter to the editor feel free to write to [email protected].
To the Editor:
Focus on a livable, pedestrian friendly Fort Bragg.
Many studies show that mixed-use developments weather rough economic periods significantly better than single-use properties. Ideally a mixed-use plan for the City of Fort Bragg would blend residential, commercial, cultural, and institutional uses. Nationwide there is an increasingly decrease in buying mass-produced, generic goods from impersonal chains. Access to small local businesses and service is key as we shift to environmental and pedestrian friendly Fort Bragg as the way of the future.
Baby Boomers are downsizing, and millennials tend to live leaner. Remote workers will be becoming the norm. Tourism and big box stores are not what the City should be looking at. Office space and residential properties are more strategic as real estate investment. Big Box Stores go out of business often. Mixed use development as I described has a better chance of not ending up as abandoned huge buildings that that still haunt Fort Bragg. Empty lots wait for mixed use housing. Who’s holding out and why?
Where is critical thinking and creative thinking? We have to move out of the 1960’s developer mindset and steer away from Big Box stores especially when housing is a crisis here.
Facades and signs, hotels, and plans for tourism– does this really matter when we cannot even house our service workers and elders in decent housing?
Our post office, small specialty grocery stores, bookstores, restaurants, art galleries, craft shops, antiques and mini museums and a mix of services keep our town buzzing and more can if the routes to each are connected and walkable. Ft. Bragg is a hub for services for area residents on the Coast and we need to pay attention to that.
Mary Rose Kaczorowski
Fort Bragg CA
The preceding article was an opinion column, or letter to the editor, and the opinions expressed therein are the author’s, not those of The Mendocino Voice. It was not necessarily edited for punctuation, capitalization, spelling etc. While, we reserve the right to copyedit and fact-check opinion pieces, and letters to the editor — and to annotate such pieces with fact-checking — we do not habitually do so.
Additional note: Kaczorowski is a freelance writer residing in Fort Bragg. She occasionally write for The Mendocino Voice. In light of her applying to fill the vacant council seat in Ft. Bragg, she will no longer cover city politics.
I think Ms. Kaczorowski is onto something here. I totally agree with blocking future big box stores. They do not help communities thrive, but in actuality hurt the local economy. We all need to support our local community businesses, retail stores, restaurants etc. without the big chain stores interfering.
But what is also needed is a focus on bringing in outside monies through some means. Therefore, the city should also support tourism. With minimum impact on us, tourists come to enjoy our city, while leaving their money.
The timber and fishing industries are all but gone. The mill is gone. The abalone are gone. The salmon are on the cusp of extinction. Fort Bragg is at a breaking point. Consider mountain biking as a healthy form of tourism. It is a multi-billion dollar industry looking for places to exercise. While the rest of the US economy is on the skids, biking has only exploded in sales.
Mountain biking tourism has saved many communities around the country. Oakridge OR was once a thriving hub for the PNW US Forest Service headquarters. The two mills there shut down in 1985. Consequently, the town died until bike tourism resurrected it. Moab UT had a similar death knell when the uranium industry failed in the 1960’s. Now it is an economically flush community based upon tourism, specifically mountain biking.
Millions of dollars come in from this clean industry. We already have most of the infrastructure in place. Motels and trails (125+ miles!). Please consider promoting biking tourism and the trails in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF). See how Park City UT does it. For its own benefit, the community of Fort Bragg should support the currently growing community movement on the Mendocino Coast aimed at preserving the western sector of our fantastic JDSF redwood forest (largest state forest in CA) at 48,652 acres! This sector contains 80% of the recreational trail network in the JDSF. It could be the bread and butter for Fort Bragg’s viable future.
Roo Harris
author: “Mountain Biking the Mendocino Coast and Beyond”
Environmentally sustainable tourism is definitely a way to go. Many years ago some of us tried to pitch the county to take over LP’s (Louisiana Pacific Corp.) lands at least in Mendocino County and turn it into a non-profit sustainable enterprise for leasing out sustainable recreation, camping and restorative areas and 60-100 year selective and careful rotation logging. Then came The Fisher Family of The Gap Inc. and their Mendocino Redwood Company.