City Council — March 24, 2026

public comments ahead of the presentations.

I'd like to move that we move item six public comments before item five presentations.

All right thank you is there a second? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Thank you motion passes okay moving on to public comments then first speaker we have John Meadows welcome John.

Thank You council about your y'all sign you want to put out at the edge of town east end little triangle piece of ground I don't know if any of you have walked that site. Maybe you want to go out and take a walk? It's not kept up very well, number one. There are a couple of stumps and things laying around and I don t think it s all that good of a look for Fillmore and who we are.

I know we have a lot of time in this project. If you look at the colored picture of that, what really concerns me is the white arrow behind it's gonna disappear. I happen to know a lot about colors and what shows up and going down the road we have five or six addresses down on our property on the highway and we try really hard to make things blend and go with the scenery in the area around it.

Again, I know you guys are kind of far into this project but I noticed there's a time to read chart. And if any of you have been out to that site, you'll notice that there's a speed check sign on an 8-inch Caltrans pole directly in front of where you want to place this sign. So you're going to lose one third visibility of this sign right off the bat, not to mention a small tree growing. I don't know if it's a crepe myrtle or what it is but if you stand as if you were the sign looking east, the poles at your 12 o'clock and the trees at your 1 It's just friendly advice before we do this.

This sign belongs on Central and 126, is really where the sign belongs. We're trying to direct people to the historical portion of Fillmore which is Central Avenue Main Street. I feel like we should have a centerpiece there at Central and 126. Again my opinion as a business owner in town. The last thing I'll leave you with, and I'm going to be brief because I know there's other people that want to speak about this. Is this the absolute best we can do for our businesses in our historical downtown?

And I am gonna tell ya it's not. I think we can do better. I really do. There's a couple individuals in this room that's put some significant time and stuff. And I don't know what the city is so scared of letting these individuals come together with whoever we need to come together with to do this. I understand there's red tape and stuff we have to deal with, I get all that.

But is this the best we can do for Fillmore? We're better than this, much better than this and a lot more creative. Thank you guys, I appreciate it.

That was for item 9A, and I apologize. This is time for items that are not on the agenda so if there's any other speakers that would like to speak on items that are not on the agenda?

Great thank you so much Mr. Mayor, members of the council my name is Pedro Chavez I serve as the Executive Director of One Step LMS your neighbor down the street we are nearly a 1 million dollar organization employing 14 people driving local economy helping local teens and families through various services and programs here I'm here basically, and you'll have this handed to you, to provide you some of our most latest collateral material about our programs and services serving nearly 300 teens in the Santa Clara River Valley. We're also here to invite you to join us and our partnership with the Ventura County Probation Agency and our local law enforcement partners for Cones for Cops which is going to be held at One Step LFS on April 15th From 4 to 530, it's an opportunity to break the ice and create connection between our young people and our local law enforcement partners.

And so we invite you all to participate at that event. There'll be free ice cream and activities that were hosting on site. We're also one of the food pantries here in Fillmore. In particular, tomorrow is our food pantry. We have it the second and the fourth Wednesday of the month. And we're also the emergency distribution for food, emergency food for residents that are unable to leave their homes. So these are just some of the community services we offer. Just wanted to remind you that we're a partner and hoping that the city would allow distribution of information that's beneficial to all. Thank you so much for your time and have a great day.

Thank you. Okay, moving on to presentations we have 5A Santa Paula Branch Line Master Tender.

Good evening Mayor Mendez, members of the City Council and City Manager. Thank you so much for this opportunity to be here with you this evening. My name is Amanda Fagan and I serve as the Director of Planning and Sustainability for the Ventura County Transportation Commission or VCTC VCTC is the Regional Transportation Planning Agency serving Ventura County, responsible for planning, programming and providing transportation services programs and projects throughout the county.

I appreciate this opportunity to be here with you this evening and talk about the Santa Paula Branch Line Trail Master Plan update. And I'd be happy to talk with you about any other projects that we have going on in the Santa Clara River Valley as well. As I mentioned to Councilmember Brogy, our commissioner who serves here on our commission. I spend almost as much time here in Fillmore and the Santa Clara River Valley as I do in my office in Camarillo because we do have quite a bit going on here in the valley.

So I'll start with a brief history of the Santa Paula branch line, then share an overview of the trail master plan update, environmental review, trail compatibility, the environmental report process and community engagement. So the Santa Paula Branch Line Railroad is an important piece of the county's history. Established in the 1880s by Southern Pacific Railway to serve the expanding agricultural industry of the Santa Clara River Valley, with packing houses and ag-related businesses served by the railroad. The city of Fillmore as you probably know was named after Jerome Fillmore, the superintendent of Southern Pacific Railroad at the time of its founding.

The Ventura County Transportation Commission purchased the Santa Paula and the Ventura branch lines from Southern Pacific Railway in 1995 for $8.5 million dollars. The Ventura branch has since become the popular Ojai to Ventura bike trail. The 32-mile Santa Paula branch line railroad and associated right of way was acquired for use as a multimodal corridor that includes freight and passenger rail, television and film production, a bicycle and pedestrian trail, and preservation of the corridor for possible future commuter rail service.

In 2001, VCTC entered into a 20 year operating lease with Fillmore & Western Railway for the operational right-of-way, and that expired in June of 2021. After a competitive selection process, VCTC executed a railroad lease and operations agreement with Sierra Northern Railway in December 2021. Sierra Northern Railway is responsible for operating and maintaining the railroad and associated right-of-way under a Railroad Lease and Operations Agreement, with rights to provide freight and transload rail services, tourist and excursion passenger services, and television and film production.

The Railroad Lease and Operations Agreement was designed to foster a shared purpose to invest in the Santa Paula branch line and the surrounding communities. We often use the term right-of-way when talking about the branch line. In this context, right-of way refers to a linear corridor used for transportation infrastructure such as roads, railroads and trails.

The VCTC owned right of way consists of 99 parcels typically 100 feet wide and extending 32 miles from Ventura through Piru. When VCTC acquired the branch line three decades ago, plans included a bicycle and hiking trail among the stated purposes. In 1996, BCTC adopted the Santa Paula Branch Line Master Plan which included design guidelines and plans for a trail.

In 2000, BCTC adopted a master plan and environmental impact report for the Santa Paula Branch Line Recreational Multi-Use Trail. The plan again provides design guidelines, preliminary engineering, and a preferred alignment for the trail. With increased public interest in active transportation opportunities, in April of 2022 our commission adopted a goal to reinvigorate the process to complete the Santa Paula Branch Line bike trail.

And in 2023 adopted a strategic plan that includes an update to the Trail Master Plan to validate trail alignment connections and amenities and update the existing conditions to facilitate trail completion with stakeholder engagement. In 2024, VCTC applied for and received a federal surface transportation block grant and a regional early action planning grant from the Southern California Association of Governments to update the trail master plan from Sataquoi through Piru.

Then following a competitive procurement process, the commission awarded a contract to WSP in March of 2025 to prepare an update to the trail master plan and a new environmental document. In the intervening years between the original Trail Master Plan and now, three trail segments have been constructed in the cities of Santa Paula and Fillmore and in the unincorporated Piru community. As I was preparing for this evening, I realized that your trail here in Fillmore is about to celebrate its 20th birthday next year.

The trail has been incorporated into many adopted VCTC county and city plans including but not limited to those shown on the screen. The trail plans facilitate connectivity across the county and the region, and seek to better serve individual communities such as Sattaquay. The focus of our current BCTC-led effort is an update to the Trail Master Plan and preparation of a new environmental document.

This is a Rails With Trails project where a multiuse path is planned to run primarily along the railroad tracks with continued active rail operations. The photo on this slide is an example of what the trail might look like, and it's for discussion purposes only. It does not represent the final design of the trail. The Trail Master Plan update presents an opportunity to invest in active transportation connections to housing, transit, education and job centers throughout the Santa Clara River Valley. Provide abundant opportunities for educational, interpretive and scenic connections and reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions while addressing agricultural compatibility concerns.

This map depicts the various planning areas for the Santa Paula Branch Line Corridor. The branch line begins at the East Ventura-Montalvo Metrolink Station in Ventura and continues for 32 miles through Santa Paula, Fillmore and through Pirue. The existing completed trail sections are shown on this map in blue. The area shown in yellow is the four-mile Ventura segment, and the areas shown in orange are the Santa Paula extension segments.

Ventura and Santa Paula have active planning efforts of their own to advance design and construction of additional trail segments. The red segments on this map are the focus of the Trail Master Plan update, the approximately 27 miles from the Sataquai Depot through to the end of the corridor beyond Piru. The areas that connect existing trail segments and the Heritage Valley communities with one another and eventually create connections to the coast.

To complete the trail we face a number of challenges related to constraints on the right-of-way bridges and crossings And addressing concerns regarding compatibility with adjacent agricultural activities. I like to say that if this project were easy, it would be done already. At the same time we also have opportunities to build on existing studies connect to existing and planned trails and to incorporate historic and educational elements into the trail design and implementation.

A core focus of the Trail Master Plan update is to explore and incorporate trail compatibility considerations and features. VCTC has long been aware of concerns from agricultural interests regarding use of the branch line corridor for a trail, Some of the concerns expressed by agricultural landowners and interests have included vandalism, litter, liability, trespass, loss of ag operator ability to cross the corridor and loss of farmland to buffers between recreational and agricultural uses.

The original master plan and EIR include design features and mitigations to address these concerns. And in 2015, the commission sought to address agricultural concerns further through a trail compatibility survey which includes case studies and lessons learned from other trail projects located within open space and commercial agricultural areas around the country and includes recommendations for trail and buffer design, and trail management policies and strategies to balance the needs of all stakeholders.

Some of the strategies include indemnification of farmers against liability from trail use beyond those existing California statutes that already provide such protections Appropriate fencing to delineate trail and agricultural areas. Policies and agreements that allow trail closure as needed for agricultural operations such as spraying, controlled crossings for farm equipment, and maintenance and operations policies and practices to maintain the trail and address concerns just to name a few.

The following topics Recent engagement with agricultural stakeholders has helped us to better understand how the findings from the 2015 compatibility survey apply now in 2026, and what new considerations have arisen. Feedback is being incorporated into the master plan and the draft EIR technical studies and mitigation options. We will continue to engage with agricultural stakeholders throughout the planning process.

One of the models for agricultural compatibility that we are exploring is called AgRespect, a series of principles and an educational program created to address trespass and other property concerns along the vine trail in the Napa Valley. The program is available for licensing for use around California and could be applied and adapted for use here on the Santa Paula Branch Line Trail.

Based on a review of the original trail master plan, existing conditions, opportunities and constraints analysis and stakeholder feedback. The team has developed a set of four alternative alignments for further evaluation. Alternatives were developed through an iterative process with routes initially proposed by the technical team and refined through stakeholder feedback.

The primary corridor for the project is the Santa Paula branch line right-of-way, but variations are being considered based on community suggestions and where constraints make utilizing the railroad right of way difficult. Near Fillmore, the original adopted Trail Master Plan alignment deviates from the railroad right-of-way at Sycamore Road between State Route 126 and 7th Street. The Trail Master Plan update is considering possible adjustments and verifying the proposed alignments.

To cross Sespe Creek, both the original master plan and our current update would propose to locate the trail on Old Telegraph Road due to sufficient bridge width of the existing Old Telegraph Road Bridge and considering the cost and feasibility of a new or modified rail bridge to accommodate a trail. The team also looked at a variety of options within the City of Fillmore in collaboration with city staff. This map shows areas in pink where relatively modest gap closures and improvements could enhance the existing bicycle network within the city to create a continuous loop around the central and southern parts of the city.

The team is currently considering four end-to-end alternatives. Alternatives 1 through 3 follow the branch line right of way with some variations where appropriate. Alternative 4 also follows the local roadways with connections into the towns and all are being considered for some level of trail amenities. The next step in our alternatives development will be to finalize the evaluation criteria and analysis methodology with the assistance of the project development team, which is very capably served by the City of Fillmore through your city staff participating on that.

to prepare cost estimates for each alternative, evaluating alternatives based on project objectives and evaluation criteria and selecting a preferred alignment and range of alternatives for analysis in the EIR followed by identifying funding strategies and developing an implementation plan and schedule. The team is also developing trail amenities concepts such as rest areas We will be preparing an environmental impact report to accompany the Trail Master Plan.

We're preparing a new programmatic EIR which evaluates the potential environmental impacts of a plan, program or series of actions that can be characterized as one large project similar to a master plan or general plan for a city to inform decision makers about the environmental impacts of an entire plan rather than one smaller project within a plan. The environmental analysis that will be conducted for this and other projects begins with the project description and public scoping, then technical studies preparation of a draft EIR, public review and hearings, and a final EIR.

We are currently at the technical studies phase And beginning the process of drafting an environmental impact report. A wide range of factors are analyzed in an EIR, including agricultural, biological and cultural resources, transportation and wildlife among others. Initial feedback gathered during the scoping process and throughout our project's engagement efforts have identified a number of environmental factors for further evaluation in the EIR from agriculture to wildfire.

Public feedback will help to identify the technical areas of focus and potential impacts within a local context. It also informs consideration of project alternatives, and suggests more effective mitigation measures. The master plan update and environmental review will have and will continue to provide many opportunities to engage in the planning process. The team initially prepared an outreach and engagement plan that incorporates best practices for public and stakeholder engagement.

Two advisory committees were formed, including a technical advisory committee and a citizen's advisory committee, and a project development team. To date the Technical and Citizen Advisory Committees have each met three times and the PDT has met nine times. Four pop-up events were held at community events in Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru and Satakoy. And we held three community workshops in June, October and December of 2025 with over 100 attendees and more than 40 responses on the role plot maps engagement activities just in the first two workshops.

Presentations were available in Spanish and interpretation services were provided during the workshops in Spanish, Mixteco and other indigenous languages. A project webpage was developed and is available on the GoVentura.org website with links to a brief introductory video available in English and Spanish We have done just about every method to get the word out about this project, including being here this evening. And again we really appreciate this opportunity.

We'll continue to hold the advisory committee meetings, conduct one-on-one engagement. We're proposing to form a new ag stakeholders working group And to continue pop-up events, to refine the draft master plan update and prepare for public circulation of the draft EIR. This slide includes a link to our website. We would welcome comments submitted via email to the project email address, spbl.trail at goventura.org or through the link tree and the QR code here on this slide we encourage you to sign up to be notified about future engagement opportunities We are in a little bit of a quieter period where technical studies are underway.

But we will be, as I mentioned, we're proposing to our commission to provide some additional resources for forming an ag working group and ag stakeholders working group that would meet four times throughout the remainder of the Trailmaster planning process We are proposing also to extend the timeline for the completion of the project, and that would have the master plan update and environmental impact report completed before our commission for adoption next spring. And the whole project would be wrapped up by June of 2027.

So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about this project. I'd also mention we have several other projects ongoing here in the Santa Clara River Valley including the efforts to repair the Sespe Creek Railroad Bridge. We also have a new climate vulnerability assessment and action plan that will be a county-wide project that's getting underway We have applied for and are hopeful to receive a grant from Caltrans through the Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant Program to conduct a multimodal corridor study for State Route 126 and a safety plan.

The feedback we've received from Caltrans so far has been favorable, and we should find out in June whether you receive that funding. And then we would hope to be doing quite a bit more planning here in the valley working on the 126 and addressing some community concerns related to that roadway network. We've also partnered with One Step Alavez and Seafrog to CARB for some additional resources for youth engagement related to transportation here in the Santa Clara River Valley as well. So we're really excited about both the ongoing and upcoming projects here in the valley and Fillmore, and again, we really appreciate this opportunity to be here this evening so thanks.

Thank you.

Questions? Yes, I have a question. So Miranda, I just have a question kind of somewhat related so I know that the railroad right away used to extend all the way to Newhall all the way out there is do you know or are there any plans to extend the trail network out into Los

Angeles

sorry into Los Angeles and along that right away you know if there are any plans for that

So reconnecting the railroad to New Hall and Santa Clarita has been studied in the past. There are not current active planning efforts to do that extension, but I think that's something that could be revisited as part of the multimodal corridor study. We did talk with folks from New Hall Ranch about the possibility of connecting to the trail system that is Thank you.

I do have some as well. Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. It was a great presentation chock full of information. I'm going to make sure I get a copy of this. So the first question I have is about the corridor and the 100 feet basically on either side of the railway. You mentioned that VCTC has a lot of parcels along the way and that most of them are 100 feet but some of them especially near us are more narrow.

I guess my question is I thought by right-of-way that it was like a legal term of 50 feet on either side of the railway. So how is it some are more narrow, some are wider? Is there, you know...

They're actually owned deeded parcels so not an easement in the traditional sense. Most of those parcels are 100 feet wide but there are some parts that are a little bit more narrow And there are also some sections that are wider. There are segments that are 200 feet wide, 100 feet on either side in particular where there were stations planned that never materialized. I think the one that comes to mind is in the Kevitt area. There's a 200-foot right of way section. We do have a map on our website that shows the parcel boundaries and you can see where some of those more narrow segments are.

And there are some areas that are a little bit more tricky like the tunnel that goes underneath the 126 kind of by Briggs Road in Santa Paula. So we have to figure out ways to kind of work around some of those more constrained areas of the trail whether that's through a deviation onto local roads or some other type of solution,

right? Okay Thank you And then I love that I saw that maybe some alternatives to the red line areas between Santa Paula and Fillmore, particularly one that avoided the railroad crossing right? And sort of goes along the highway a little bit before it can then use the road that goes under Sycamore Road. I forgot the name of the road, but so smart to not avoid that railroad crossing. So I'm very much in favor of that.

But then I think of the other one between Santa Paula and Fillmore which is the one right east of Halleck. And my follow up on that is has there been any consideration of a pedestrian or bicyclist bridge?

Yes, there are. So the planning has done whatever we can to avoid new crossings of the 126 but some are difficult to avoid. We did look at some different alternatives around Halic weather that to improve the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure at grade which is not an ideal solution. The plans do call for a new pedestrian and bicycle bridge that would cross the 126 there just east of Halleck.

Those solutions can be very expensive and difficult to materialize, so there may be sort of interim solutions that might be the at-grade improvements followed by future other crossing alternatives whether over or under crossings.

All right, thank you. And then my last question is around yeah I understand the concerns they've been ongoing for years and I'm glad to hear that there's a agriculture stakeholders group to particularly hear their feedback and their comments in there being the landowners of that area just understanding potential pitfalls that may come up but I was wondering if there was ever talk maybe this is much closer to when this actually gets accomplished and would open up But a bike's pedestrian path that would just be opened maybe on the weekends, sort of Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Thinking the most people will probably do it is for recreation and that sort of thing. So just a question.

The master plan will include recommendations for operations and maintenance of the trail which could include time constraints As a transportation asset, having the trail open more than it's closed is certainly valuable. But we do understand there are needs for Activity agricultural or other business activities near the trail that That might come into conflict with With the trail use so there we are exploring ways to address those concerns whether it's through closure agreements or active trail management It is my professional opinion that in order if that if we are going to make this a If we're really going to build this trail, we need to staff it and resource it appropriately. Whether that's through additional staff at VCTC or some other type of multi-jurisdictional partnership through a JPA or a nonprofit You know, entity that's really resourced appropriately to manage a trail so that you could do things like trail closures and.

And, you know, and really enforce those kinds of requirements. So that's all part of the planning efforts. OK,

great. Thank you. And sorry I just have one more. I wrote down and realized and that was if you could just explain really briefly when you talked about other projects going on and the multimodal The multimodal corridor study would be similar to a study that we conducted and completed in 2001 for US 101.

And it looks at all types of transportation within a certain corridor, a certain distance around a state highway or a freeway. So in this case we would be looking and similar to the way we did for 101, it's a three mile corridor on either side of the highway and would look at transit rail Thank you so much.

Thank you. Amanda, thank you so very much. I know council has heard information regarding the This evening we will be talking about the bike path. that bridges her project as well. So she's amazing, and I don't know how she can do what she does and do it as well as she does. But you know, I've worked with Amanda now long enough to know that she can do anything. And I think this project is once all the kinks are ironed out, you know, and the community is happy across the board including the agricultural community And I think we'll get there with your involvement and your knowledge and communicating with all the parties involved. I think we'll get there, but I just want to thank you so much for all the work that you've done, and I'm just so glad you're there.

Thank you. I appreciate the vote of confidence greatly.

I have one quick question. Everybody asks really good questions and some of them are like, alright that's really good. I know you mentioned something in the lines of rest areas so I'm just curious to know if there was also talks about having portable restrooms or lighting as well? I know we talked about safety. Is that all going to be part of the plan?

Yes, so at the master plan level we'll define the types of amenities that would be provided and sort of the frequency of providing them. Not necessarily to the level of detail where we would have designs for those rest areas at this stage But it would include the sort of factors that would be incorporated into further design work down the road. In terms of something like restrooms, we would look to existing We are looking for appropriate places to provide those amenities like community parks and other community facilities where perhaps we could enhance the existing facilities to serve the trail.

We are conscious of the proximity of restrooms to agricultural activities and wanting to make sure that they're not impacting one All of those things will be taken into consideration and incorporated into the master plan. Thank you

so much. Great questions. Amanda, thank you for your presentation and thank you for your work on all of your projects.

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Can I add one more thing? As Amanda was saying earlier she's going to be spending even more time here in the Valley. I think we need to get some office space for her at City Hall or something like that. She's going to need it instead of schlepping back

to Montgomery. With my steel-toed boots and my hard hat climbing under that bridge, I think I could be right there. You'd fit right in. Yeah.

Moving on to item 5B, the Wildland Conservancy presentation.

Welcome. Thank you very much members of the City Council city staff thank you for having me this evening my name is Frazier Haney I'm the executive director for the wildlands conservancy we're a Southern California based nonprofit give me one second to get this thing going I always forget how to use this Lower right. That's the one right there. Thank you. I'm used to the Google software now, so they had to change everything.

The Wildlands Conservancy is based in Southern California but we work all across California, Oregon, Utah and now into Arizona. I am really pleased to be here in the City of Fillmore tonight to talk about a vision that we have that we'd like to work with the city on Every time I come to Phil Morris, I've come to learn this place a little bit more. I'm impressed by how it feels like the California of old, California before major sprawl, the railroad running through the middle of town, the historic downtown and the incredible scenic backdrop in every direction.

So I'm just so impressed with the city, with the job that you've done and it's been a pleasure to get to know the place a little bit more. More specifically, I'm here to talk to you about...I want to give you an impression of who our organization is and the project that we're beginning to work on in the foothills just above the city to the east of the Cespe Creek. So really the backdrop to Central here in many ways.

Our organization is 30 years old, we were founded in 1995 in San Bernardino County and we've worked all over California a lot of our work was in Southern California. We made the largest A private gift of land to the American public in the California desert that was 587,000 acres. That ultimately led to the creation of Mojave Trails National Monument if you've ever driven Route 66 it's that corridor.

And we bought summer camps for UCLA early in our history. We bought a science camp for LA County early in our history. We worked really hard as the primary promoter of the Santa Ana River Trail and Parkway. which is 110 miles from California's high point all the way down to Newport and Huntington Beach, to create a continuous trail for hikers and equestrians and bicycle riders to ride along the river there. We like to call the Santa Ana River Trail and Parkway a passport to nature for some of the most nature-starved communities in Southern California. The thing that we're most proud of though our most enduring achievement is the creation of a preserve system.

And I've just put a few dots on the map here to show you where our existing preserves are, and then the stars represent places that we're working on acquiring new places. So you'll see Cesspie Foothills and the City of Fillmore is just below the number 13. And the number 13 is our wind wolves preserve, a little bit more about that. We're a little different than other conservation organizations in a few different ways. One we are generally acquiring land in fee title. We're going on the deed. We're not acquiring an easement, we're actually buying the land. The reason that we do that is because our operating principles are kind of beliefs how we operate as an organization.

The vision that we want to pursue in the world is to protect land directly and permanently. We'd like to open land to the public. We like to open land to the public for free because we believe that access to nature is a birthright And if you have to pay to visit nature, you've been deprived of a birthright. We're also the largest provider of free outdoor education for kids of any nonprofit in the state of California.

Our organization was founded in Southern California and we've noticed I'm sure everybody that lives in Southern California has The kids are increasingly disconnected from nature, and they have a right to be in nature. And they're going to take care of it when we're all gone. So we work really hard to get kids outside at our preserve systems. I'll just take you on a quick tour of a few places and then I'll dig into a couple of our projects more specifically before giving you an idea of what we're up to here in Fillmore and the Cespe Hills. This is our Two Rivers Preserve in Mono County, so we've protected rivers in the eastern Sierras, coastal sloughs in Sonoma County. The Estero Americano Coast Preserve just opened last year for public visitation.

Rugged desert wilderness in Pioneertown out in San Bernardino County. Beautiful coastlines up in Humboldt County. Redwood trees in Sonoma and Humboldt County. Wildlife, we love elk. It's such an iconic creature. This is up in Oregon where we protect a herd of Rocky Mountain Elk. This is in southeast Utah where we've protected this beautiful canyon at the edge of Bears Ears National Monument near Bluff, Utah.

We were founded in the San Bernardino Mountains a couple hours from here near Oak Glen. If you know where Oak Glen is, it's an apple growing community and this map shows in teal our existing preserves around the San Bernardino Mountains. What started out as the Sand-to-Snow Wilderness Interface project in 1995 grew into the Sand-to Snow Preserve System and ultimately, in 2016 became the Sand-to Snow National Monument.

And I'll just take you on a quick tour of a few places inside of our preserve system. This is Galena Peak, high at the top of Mill Creek. This is the Oak Glen Preserve where we see over 600,000 visitors a year that come to pick apples and picnic with their families and go on school tours and enjoy our botanic garden. Oakland sees over 10,000 students a year from local schools who come to enjoy one of our naturalist-led programs all for free to the students in the school.

The Bluff Lake Preserve in San Bernardino County is now the home to the largest wild population of mountain yellow legged frogs which we reintroduced there last year to try and keep them alive in nature from going extinct in the wild. This is where I live. I live at our Bear Paw Preserve, this is Columbine Falls. It's a beautiful waterfall hidden in the canyons in the San Bernardinos. Our preserve system are staffed and we generally like to have staff living on site so that we maintain a presence at the places that we take care of.

That picture didn't come through on the, just picture on the left hand side of the picture a Joshua tree. On the right hand side of the picture is a Yucca moth which if you know anything about Joshua trees and Yucca moths these two creatures have just recently been listed as endangered and Yucca moths are critical to the survival of Joshua trees so we've been working on helping recover that at our Pioneertown Mountains Preserve This is just a view of the Sand-to-Snow National Monument in Bloom near Desert Hot Springs at our Mission Creek Preserve.

Like I said, we love wildlife. There's desert tortoise down there at Mission Creek that we manage the preserve for. This is the Whitewater Preserve in Riverside County, also one of our sand to snow preserves. It sees about 160,000 visitors each year at our preserve parking lot and park area there. There are some special friends of ours that live at the Whitewater Preserve. One of the best places anywhere to see bighorn sheep in Southern California is at the cliffs there, at the preserve.

I always love this picture because the quail is doing exactly what it should right? It's at the wildlife refuge. This is the Whitewater Preserve Park. You can see we've got a restroom and a shade structure, and a picnic area. It's a very well-loved place near Palm Springs. The closest preserve that we have to Fillmore is the Windwolves Preserve. Has anybody here ever been up over the grapevine to the Windrow Preserve?

So you're all invited, I would love to give you a tour. Windwolves is open seven days a week. It sees about 100,000 visitors a year. This is the entrance to the Windwolves Preserve. This is just off Highway 166 near Maricopa and Taft. Oops, wrong direction. Windrow is the largest non-profit owned nature preserve on the West Coast. There's beautiful wildflower displays there in the spring. Many of these wildflowers are up right now.

This is a picture looking down Santa Media Canyon at Windrow. Volunteers are critical to what we do at Windwolves In this case, they're helping us plant Bakersfield cactus. But they've also helped us to restore the San Joaquin Valley kit fox by placing artificial dens for the kit fox to recruit and live in at the preserve which helps rebuild their population.

One of the proudest things that we've done as an organization is to have tule elk reintroduced at the Windrow Preserve. And 87 tule elk from 1997 have now grown into a herd of 500, and I brought you all newsletters from our last fall newsletter that there's the story of our tule elk reintroduction and some great pictures of wind wolves and more information about us So every year we count the tule elk in a volunteer event that's a really community-based event. Of course, there's California condor at Windwolves. This should be familiar to everybody in the city and a few years ago we had fledglings on Windwolves which we were really proud of and really happy about. That's a sign of success.

And we have an outdoor education program at the Windwolves Preserve as well We work in Northern California along the Eel River to help support the idea of an Eel River Emerald Necklace of Preserves along the river for people to go rafting and paddling, but also to convert the old Northwestern Pacific Rail Line into a Great Redwood Trail for hiking and equestrian use.

That vision includes the mouth of the Eel River where it hits the ocean, where we're undertaking the largest tidal restoration project on private land on the west coast here at the Eel River Estuary Preserve. The Estuary Preserve is the stronghold in California's coast for snowy plover in this section of the coast. They are an endangered bird but there are a lot of them at the preserve The Jenner Headlands Preserve in Sonoma County is a great example of a place that we really invested in public access, very thoughtfully well managed. This is looking down the coast at the Jenner Headlands Preserve looking down the mouth of the Russian River.

This is our restroom at the Jenner Headlands. We built it into an old rock quarry, so literally just disappear into the landscape. Just to give you a sense of the way that we approach our improvements and our care and management of the land. Now I'd like to talk a little bit more about what we're specifically trying to do in the Sespe Hills. These properties, the Fillmore Farms property which is 1,282 acres in the red and the Four Oaks Ranch, which is 2,678 acres in blue.

They both have a little tiny sliver inside of the city of Fillmore. They're largely in Ventura County and in the Greenbelt lands. And very literally they're the backdrop. They're up behind the satellite dishes Here in Fillmore, we would love to get you out into the properties at some point. I know it wasn't possible this time around which is why i'm here but open invitation we'd love to go up and see them with any council member or city staff So, Fillmore Farms in red here is on the edge of a very important landscape linkage.

The Four Oaks Ranch is right in the middle of it and this landscape linkage has been described scientifically as a way if I'm a large animal or bird or even a plant and I want to move from the Los Padres National Forest down to the Santa Monica Mountains, this is the primary movement corridor between Fillmore and Piru. And these properties are right in the center of that corridor which is one of many reasons that they're very important biologically as well as scenically.

Sure.

So just back when I was in high school many moons ago, we used to run that area for a cross-country team and what we called it the hump because it was straight uphill and then straight downhill and we would basically start out on the northern end of that red, up above on Goodenough Road go up the hill and then come down over in Pole Creek. So to me that really is a lot of nostalgia for me because the cross country team you know and then track teams would run that.

That's great to hear.

And honestly I wish we had access to it and it looks like we may be heading that direction.