Subject: 2026 FP Security Comment – Council 03/16/26 Public Hearing on the ACFL 2026 Forest Plan.
From: Mark B. Nihart
The ACFL Forest Plan (FP) presented at the Council Meeting Monday Feb 23 is a good improvement over the 2021 plan, mostly in format and edits for readability. The FP, however, should have a cost reduction strategy and an efficiency strategy to maximize expensive and limited staff resources.
The Forest Plan (FP) should have a section that identifies areas of needed, non-human, permanent security infrastructure, a priority of security projects with a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) budget each year for the next five years. Ideally, the permanent security systems would be enabled such that cameras can be monitored from the Park’s Office and off/on hours from the Anacortes Police Department offices. The technology is available and relatively inexpensive. (I have a cabin with 4 other cabins off grid 1 ½ miles off the County Road. We use an inexpensive system. It works great.)
Areas for permanent security system consideration –
Cranberry Lake Parking Lot
Whistle Lake Parking Lot
Whistle Lake Trail 20 end at the lake
Heart Lake Parking Lot
Sugar Loaf Parking Lot
Top of Mt Erie
Mt. Erie climbing trailhead
The FP should also identify priority areas and best practices for portable (trail camera) security systems and extend their current use as appropriate.
Rational:
A permanent 24-hour security infrastructure would likely reduce theft, vandalism and capture other misuse of the Forest Lands in those specific areas. It would reduce the need for human enforcement, expensive and limited, to be deployed. A permanent security system would also provide some usage data – hikers, bikers, watercraft, fisherpeople, banned motorcycles and horses.
This data could provide input into a database so Parks could evaluate at each site peak times of use, type of user, number of cars over days, seasons and years. Parks and Police could collaborate then tailor when human enforcement is needed with greater accuracy. The database could be the beginnings of a “data driven” approach to managing the ACFL.
Mitigation:
The FP should identify funding options outside of the normal taxpayer support of ACFL to pay for security systems projects and maintenance. Apparently, the ACFL has funds. The funding could also include an ACFL Trail Pass system like what WA Parks uses. You pay to park at trails heads and parking lots. This would help offset costs for managing the ACFL and have some of the costs picked up by nonresidents as well as us residents that use the ACFL. It would also provide a way to create donation stream like when you buy your car tabs.
The ACFL is not a Federal Park, nor a State Park both of which charge fees nor is it a County Park it is a City Park. The Anacortes residents/taxpayers/voters/ratepayers should not have to bear the whole cost of managing the Park for others to use.
It is too expensive to have the Parks Department staff, and the Anacortes Police Department to provide security and enforcement for all the ACFL problem security areas.
