LAKEPORT — People may soon be able to access Mount Konocti using a seasonal Lake Transit Authority bus route after a majority of the county supervisors supported running a pilot program this fall.
“We”re going to have minimized, controlled routes. People are going to be able to go from the bottom to the top. They”re going to enjoy the majestic views, and they”re going to go back down,” District 4 Supervisor Anthony Farrington said during Tuesday”s Lake County Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting.
The pilot program is tentatively set to occur on six days between mid-September and mid-November, with two trips per day lasting about three hours each, according to Public Services Director Caroline Chavez.
Interested people would make prepaid reservations, get picked up at the State Street park in Kelseyville and be guided by a volunteer docent, she added. The bus would seat 12 to 18 passengers and could accommodate riders with disabilities.
The county park on Mount Konocti is open to hikers but prohibits dogs, horses and bicycles at this point.
“This mountain was purchased by all the taxpayers in the county, not just a group that can make it up there that is in good, excellent physical condition,” BOS Chair Rob Brown said.
District 1 Supervisor Jim Comstock lauded the pilot proposal and joked that “there”s one fundamental flaw with this plan: it”s filled with logic and commonsense.”
Not everybody shared that level of enthusiasm during the nearly hour-long discussion at the Lake County Courthouse.
Several critics told the supervisors they were concerned about the safety of the road, whether the plan was fully vetted and protecting a non-motorized vision for the park.
A majority of Konocti Master Management Plan Committee members wanted the county to limit public access to hiking until the development of a master plan, Chavez said.
Mike Fowler, who previously owned land that is now the park and still resides on acreage he owns within the park, urged the BOS not to move too fast on the pilot program, especially without a master plan set up.
“Just drive around Lake County, drive around the lake, and you see what happens when you don”t have a plan in place. Drive over to Clearlake Highlands, drive over to Lucerne, and that”s what happens when you don”t have a plan,” he said.
District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing argued access wasn”t the only reason the county purchased the parkland.
“We preserved it for a lot of reasons, not just to hike it. We preserved it because we didn”t want to see it developed. We preserved it because it”s iconic for Lake County. It has value in its own being,” she said.
Rushing wanted the BOS to consider possible criteria for gauging the success of the pilot program before voting to approve it.
Farrington disagreed, saying, “I think getting bogged down with developing criteria just to do a pilot is too much, too bureaucratic.”
The BOS voted 4-1 in favor of directing staff to develop and work with the transit authority on the proposed pilot program. Rushing dissented.
The cost for people to take the trip is among the details still being finalized, Chavez said Wednesday.
