For Immediate Release
Contact: Bryan Chambers, Executive Director
February 27, 2022 info@slvchamber.org
FELTON, CA - The San Lorenzo Valley Chamber of Commerce is opposed to the Greenway initiative that will go before voters in the June 2022 election. The Greenway initiative will take our county backward, rather than forward in transportation planning for the future of our community and our economy.
The Greenway initiative will result in tracks being ripped up on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line and the Felton Branch Line becoming stranded from the national rail network. This will have an overwhelmingly negative impact on the San Lorenzo Valley for three key reasons:
1) The Greenway initiative would bring great harm to Roaring Camp by cutting them off from the national rail network and causing a slow decline in their business, which will have a disastrous effect on tourism and the economy of the San Lorenzo Valley and beyond.
2) Loss of the rail tracks would cut off future potential access to the Valley for rail-based emergency response services, a scenario that is opposed by numerous Valley fire chiefs who work to protect residents, businesses, and our watershed.
3) The Greenway initiative would eliminate the potential for using the rail line as an efficient, environmentally advantageous way to deliver building supplies to help rebuild the hundreds of homes that were lost to the CZU fire.
The Greenway initiative is also bad for Santa Cruz County because it does nothing to address climate change, eliminates all references to rail from the County General Plan, and halts progress currently being made on the trail that is being built next to the rail line.
The San Lorenzo Valley Chamber of Commerce joins a broad coalition in opposition and encourages a NO vote on the Greenway initiative.
6265 Highway 9 Felton, CA 95018 | info@slvchamber.org | slvchamber.org