By GEORGIA STRICKFADEN

Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago was gorgeous, so after working with my horses in the Stable Area, I walked into where FEMAville had been 25 years ago, an area being master planned as North Mesa Park.

Thanks to community action a generation ago, the area is a park. The far east end of North Mesa Park is a remnant of native mesa top grasses, forbs, and trees, encircled by a well-used hard-surface trail (first photo) frequented by residents of adjacent neighborhoods. An official small sign says it is a “Natural Habitat Area”, but the new North Mesa Park Master Plan has a bike park drawn there. The bike park is Phase One and seemingly already in the planning stages. 

This letter is about preserving Open Space and why the better location for the bike park would be in the ample vacant area west of North Mesa Park Road, adjacent to the soccer field (second photo). County staff has said in each presentation before the Parks & Rec Board and the County Council that though the amenities proposed in the Final Master Plan for North Mesa Park reflect what public participants revealed they want, elements of the plan would be phased over time depending on funding and continued interest. Staff also indicated the possibility that proposed amenities can be located differently from where drawn in the final plan.

About North Mesa Park: Since hundreds of Los Alamos families lost their homes in the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) was allowed by the County to temporarily place 86 mobile homes in the open space between the Stable Area and San Ildefonso Road. Upon the removal of the temporary trailer village in 2003, the Los Alamos Community overwhelmingly wanted that open space preserved as a park. Girl Scouts replanted native plants they had grown from locally harvested native seeds. Subsequently, a soccer field, mud volleyball courts, a dog park, the Community Gardens, tennis and pickleball courts, play lot, and trailheads, have been added.

Also in 2003, the far eastern patch of native mesa top was defended by North Mesa residents as a natural area to be made accessible by a developed hard surface trail or path. That was done and continues to be used and enjoyed daily. This area is also probably the last vestige of native mesa-top in the county that is readily accessible to everyone. Nature takes care of the native grasses and forbs, and pollinators thrive here, so there is virtually no additional expense for maintenance. Of historical interest, this part of the mesa was part of the Manuel Lujan homestead whose cabin is still intact in its original location in the Stable Area and is listed on the New Mexico State Register of Historic Places. The cabin is currently used by an agricultural heritage education non-profit that teaches about our homesteading heritage.

Natural Open Space is a valuable amenity as is, serving as a quiet natural habitat where people can have a healthy respite from artificial environments.

Adding any other recreational amenities in that space will only diminish its value. It most certainly is not “wasted land”.

But that doesn’t mean that a bike park can’t be built in North Mesa Park. There remains a second option.

In the final stages of the recently completed North Mesa Park Master Plan, two viable locations were identified for development of the bike park. “Option A”, as discussed above, and “Option B” which leaves the Natural Area as open space, while locating a bike park on the ample available land west of the park road extending to the soccer field. I truly don’t think that the majority voting for the Option A plan understood that development per Option A would seriously impinge on the current users of the open space in question. Walkers from the adjacent neighborhoods might not be able or have the time to “just walk on over to the Kwaje Mesa trails for a natural experience,” as some have suggested.

So now what? On my Sunday afternoon walk in the park, I observed several people, some walking dogs, using the trail in the Natural Area (Option A for location of bike park), while there was absolutely no one in the large vacant area between the roads, soccer field, and dog park (Option B). As a staunch advocate for Open Spaces, my appeal is that the Open Space Natural Area can be kept in its entirety for its intrinsic value and continued use as a popular and accessible walk in Nature, and that the promoters of the bike park who chose that area would instead reconsider the Option B plan for locating the bike park in the available area west of the N. Mesa Park Road. The Natural Open Space cannot be moved, but a bike park can.

For updates on the ongoing planning for parks’ master plans, contact the Community Services Department, cory.styron@lacnm.us.