What’s the value of a trail? Or a trails network? To you personally? To the community?

Apparently to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors (BOS), only when they become a Montecito problem.

The concerns about fire danger and worries about the Hot Springs “problem” are valid ones. But other than that, the board has for the most part ignored our Santa Ynez Mountains frontcountry trails and done little to nothing to support them.

In July 2021, I wrote an article titled “Front-Country Trailhead Parking Issues Are Symbol of Larger Concerns.”

Then-Executive Director of the Montecito Association Sharon Byrne told me, “The reality is that trailhead parking has been an ongoing issue for years. Once primarily a weekend issue, it has now become a 7-day-a-week headache.”

At Tuesday’s BOS meeting, the discussion focused on what one might call a band-aid solution: use of parking and red flag closures at the Hot Springs trailhead. 

The reality is that the county has ignored the primary issue, which is that use of the frontcountry trails has exploded in popularity over the past several decades and nothing has been done to deal with that.

Just a few weeks ago, the BOS patted themselves on the back for approving a Recreation Master Plan for the county, as if trails and urban recreation were now a main focus of concern.

But it’s a plan that won’t be felt now but many years in the future, and possibly will be meaningless unless voters in the county approve funding for it.

I‘m not taking odds on whether that will happen in the near future. That’s a sad prognosis when a local Santa Barbara County master plan is so critically needed.

In the meantime, I’ve seen the County Parks Department and county-managed trails devalued over time.

Parks lost any leverage it had as independent department when it was folded into the Community Services Department, depriving it of a seat at the table. Today Parks is woefully underfunded, with little funds to care for the trails it already has.

My guess is that the money saved went into other parts of the county budget rather than either parks or trails.

Nor is there a line item in the budget for trails, staff or equipment to maintain trailheads, trails or impacts when they need repair.

Thankfully, we have been blessed with several of the finest nonprofits anywhere in the county to take on that responsibility. But that can only go so far.

A Seat at the Table

In 2021, I suggested the time seemed perfect for a discussion regarding a management plan for the frontcountry trails. 

I proposed then — and think it more important now than ever — that the trails be managed as a single unit with agreements among the various agencies that would allow the development of a framework for managing the trails and a community-based blueprint to guide future direction.

The question I asked then was a simple one: Who speaks for the trails? Or the trailheads? Or the trail users? Or the land?

I suggested that a newly developed regional trail management area could provide a framework for unified management of the frontcountry trails and management plan to provide a vision for the future — one that also provide solutions to unmet recreational needs such as trailhead parking and other issues that are not be dealt with today

Who Should Be Managing the Trails?

In June 2023, I added another article relating to the frontcountry trails titled “Who Owns the Frontcountry Trails?” 

My point was once again that it was time for the public agencies to step up and take control of managing the trails. 

I wrote then that “trying to figure out what agency is responsible for managing each of the frontcountry trails is more confusing than a crossword puzzle with no clues.”

The words I wrote then frame what we should be talking about now:

Whether through actual ownership of the land or on easements along sections of trail leading through private holdings, the three agencies share that responsibility. Yet for the most part they’ve delegated that to others. 

While this may be workable for the short term, increases in popularity and the impacts from climate change, wildfire and unpredictable winter storms will most likely make this untenable over the long term.

Has Delegating Trail Management Come at a Cost?

The numbers are telling. Thirty percent of the trails are along private lands, with county easements providing access to them. Just under 30% are owned by the city of Santa Barbara, the balance by the Forest Service.

As a result, the trail-related nonprofits are now the de facto managers of the frontcountry trails.

What issues have been created as a result of the agencies ceding responsibility to organizations that have no accountability to the public for the work they do?

Though the four major nonprofits — Los Padres Forest Association, Santa Barbara County Trails Council, Sage and Montecito Trails Foundation — continue to provide an incredible service to our community, changing environmental imperatives suggest that relying on them is not the best way to maintain our local trails in the future.

For one, the present level of work being funded by the nonprofits is not nearly what is needed to provide even the basic levels of maintenance today. 

Because these groups can also pick and choose which trails they want to fund, and choose who they want to do the work for them and what level of work is to be done, not every trail is being cared for.

The New Reality

Almost two years ago, I again noted that “increasing environmental realities are now forcing a reevaluation of how our frontcountry trails are managed,” and that is was time for the public agencies to step up and do what they should have many years ago.

I suggested a three-step process: 

Step 1: Identify a key person from each of the three agencies – including Santa Barbara County Parks, Santa Barbara City Parks & Recreation and Los Padres National Forest – with the task of developing a collaborative team partnership.

Step 2: Focus the partnership on creating a community-based task force whose prime purpose is to oversee the development of a trails management plan for a community-defined regional frontcountry trails network.

Step 3: Identify potential funding sources such as the creation of a special district, a community-wide, grant-based trails foundation, adjustment to the sales tax structure, or whatever else might be workable, to provide long-term sustainable care for the trails.

Symbol of Larger Concerns

Given the seeming lack of agency response a year ago in June 2024, I added another article, this one titled: “Los Padres Forest in the Crosshairs: While many blame Los Padres Forest for the ‘Hot Springs Problem,’ in reality it is a community problem.”

Treating the symptoms — which basically revolves around parking and access issues — I argued is not the problem. It’s just one of the problems. Unfortunately, Hot Springs is not the only part of the frontcountry trail system under stress.

While the Hot Springs problem needs fixing, the rising popularity of the frontcountry trails has been an issue for years on every one of the trails.

It’s a frontcountry problem that is now coming due.

Who’s responsible? The easy answer is everyone, but the primary agencies including Santa Barbara County, the City of Santa Barbara and Los Padres National Forest have been particularly at fault. 

The sad fact, I concluded, is that while use of the frontcountry trails increases exponentially, little attention is given to them by the agencies directly responsible for their management.

It was a problem in 2021 when I wrote the first article on the frontcountry trails, an even bigger problem in 2023 when I wrote the second article, and even worse in 2024 when I focused on the Hot Springs issues.

Beyond Time

It is beyond time now. A Recreation Master Plan isn’t the answer, though it might support one years in the future. Adding no parking signs on a red flag day isn’t either. The frontcountry trails occupy a unique place in the Santa Barbara community.

The trails are easily accessible, provide hiking opportunities for hundreds of thousands of trail users every year, and bring in tourist dollars to the area.

These trails are in need of their own management planning process, local funding and long-range planning that includes trailhead concerns, sustainable trail care and support from all of our local agencies.

My message to the BOS, the city of Santa Barbara and Los Padres Forest: It’s time to step up. Help develop a community-based management process that brings stability to our frontcountry trails.