Tolay Park process slow but necessary

Tolay Lake Regional Park, Petaluma’s own jewel in the countywide park system, is still at least another year from fully opening to the public, park officials said last week. The good news, for those who have been waiting patiently for the last decade for unfettered access to the park’s rolling grassland and marshy creeks, is that there has been some recent progress.

An uber-complicated environmental process could potentially wrap up by the end of the year, signaling the end of the planning stage, park officials hope. At that point, the county should make minimal improvements like adding portable restrooms and doing some trail maintenance, and open the park to the public. Park advocates, like Supervisor David Rabbitt, say this incremental approach could be achieved.

There is no doubt that there are costly improvements listed in the park’s master planning document, like an interpretive center and campsites, but those can be done incrementally, while the public is allowed to access the property. Currently, the public must obtain a special pass and can only use the park on weekends or during the Tolay Fall Festival.

For too many years, southern Sonoma County was at the short end of the stick when it came to public parklands. The Tolay parkland was purchased in 2005 and 2007 from the Cardoza family for $31 million, with funds coming from the Sonoma County Agricultural and Open Space District, other government agencies and some private donations.

Officials had originally planned to open it for full public use in 2009. Then we learned that the full public opening of the park was not likely to occur until least 2015. Now it looks like the process will spill into 2017.

Tolay has been the most challenging and complicated park project in the 50-facility countywide system. It borders sensitive wetlands with tremendous biological diversity. It contains Native American artifacts and is a revered cultural heritage site. There have been disagreements with neighbors over access.

Yet the planning process has crept along. This spring or early summer, the county is expected to formally take control of an additional 1,657-acre Sonoma Land Trust property just south of Tolay Lake, nearly doubling the park’s size.

The park is everything we love about Sonoma County’s pastoral beauty, and includes spectacular 360-degree views of San Francisco Bay, Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais and Mount St. Helena.

Though the planning has dragged on, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria who, along with their partner, Station Casinos of Las Vegas, Nevada, have been instrumental in moving the process forward. Their $500,000 donation, combined with $300,000 from the state Coastal Conservancy, will fully fund the remaining planning work.

While it’s certainly good news that the park’s master planning could finally wrap up by the end of the year, it’s unfortunate that South County residents have had to wait more than 10 years to fully use the land as a county park.