Petition to Resolve Recurring City Ordinance Violations and Nuisances on Trails in the Stone Canyon and Discovery Hills Communities of San Marcos, California

3/9/21 Letter to City Council

March 9, 2021  

Dear Mayor Jones, District 2 Councilman Randy Walton, and the San Marcos City Council,  

In January and February, residents near Discovery Lake and in the Stone Canyon development signed a petition to let the City of San Marcos leadership know about the magnitude and frequency of the city ordinance violations and nuisance on trails and at parks near our homes caused by hikers and park users.   81 residents signed the petition with a number of them citing specific and recurring problems that are impacting their privacy and ability to enjoy their homes. Others cited violations of law and safety and sanitation issues. Either way, this has become a significant concern for your constituents.  

Here are some responses from residents who signed the online petition:   

“I’ve lived in Discovery Hills for 19 years and have never seen anything like this past 9 months with the excessive number of people driving in to use the trails. Our beautiful trails are littered with trash, dirty diapers, used condoms, and mounds of dog feces everywhere. It’s disgusting. The number of cars parked along the streets is 25X what it used to be, and the trails are crowded and noisy. It’s no longer the peaceful environment we once loved.”

“We live on Mendocino Court across from the Lakeview Park and the parking situation is ridiculous. We also experience drivers pulling into our court at high speeds daily. There are no stop signs or crosswalks and it is unsafe with young children and a lack of visibility from parked cars lining up the streets.”

“Too much traffic. Too much noise. People talking loud 5 in the morning and very late at night.”

“I tired of people taking up all parking spaces in our neighborhood every weekend. Friends, family can't find parking when visiting. Littering on roads and sidewalks as well as my property. Dog droppings along trails, sidewalk and my lawn.”

“We are besieged every weekend and many afternoons during week with Discovery Park goers parking on our streets. Many leaving behind trash, masks, dirty baby diapers, etc. When the city eliminated Discovery Park parking for the new housing we were told that parking would be established at the new park. That has yet to happen. There’s also been a problem with fireworks at Discovery Lake Park along with drinking and shooting. We’ve call the Sheriffs numerous times.”

“I’m signing because I am a resident of Stone Canyon and hear constant yelling and vulgar language from hikers 7 days a week as early as 6am. Hikers walk in the middle of the street blocking residents from driving in and out of their streets.”

These are just some of the comments. I encourage you to read the others, here: http://bit.ly/discovery-petition.  

The residents of these two communities are calling on the San Marcos City Council to address the grievances in the petition and establish order and safety in our neighborhoods. Sending in periodic patrols is not working. Physical changes for accessing these public properties have to be made (for example, trail gates that restrict access after-hours), limiting the amount of use by reducing capacity (e.g., restricting parking), and implementing scheduled, full-time, on-site ranger patrols in the mornings, evenings, and weekends (peak times) in our two communities to educate hikers and park users. These types of actions and enforcing existing laws when violations occur must be mandated and supported by the City Council in order to restore some normalcy, privacy, and safety in our neighborhoods.

Hiker/Park User Petition Follow-Up

Hello everyone. The petition got the City Council's attention. I submitted the petition and signatures during the March 9th Council meeting and immediately received an email from Randy Walton who represents our district. He agreed to meet with me to discuss the issues that were outlined.

Randy and I met in person at 8am on Saturday, March 20th, near the trailhead to Double Peak in the Stone Canyon neighborhood. He was able to see the amount of pedestrian and biker traffic passing through Stone Canyon on the way to Double Peak and couldn't believe it. I emphasized the problem is even worse by Discovery Lake. He understood that and was aware that there are multiple hiker type problems in our neighborhoods (just not as bad as he observed in person).

When discussing how to solve it, there are short- and long-term options. The short-term options are to provide the City with more data about the issues through videos and pictures. He emphasized that anything categorized as a safety/security problem will get the most attention to influence change. One idea we had was to video record the amount of traffic passing through the neighborhoods in a time lapse and then send it to him and the Council so they can see what we're facing. If you all have the ability to do that where you live, and can post links here, I can send it in (or better yet, please send it to the City Council and add a link in the comments section). The email address is: cityclerk@san-marcos.net 

With these videos providing evidence, the short-term solution would be to direct all hiker traffic to the trailhead and parking lot across the street from Double Peak school. That would alleviate a lot of the parking and congestion issues near Discovery Lake for people not using the park.

Long-term, Randy was thinking of having a dedicated staging area away from our neighborhoods for hikers to park/congregate and then take a new trail to Double Peak that would not intersect our neighborhoods. The city has funding so money doesn't appear to be a problem.

One of the best things we can do is to use the petition process to influence the City Council. These petitions will really help the cause. So if we don't see any change occurring, I think a second petition with more resident support would really help.

If I hear or see anything else, I'll let you know. Apologies for the late response about the outcome here, but I was out of town and tied up with other things.

Thanks for your support and feel free to comment or add thoughts and any images, videos, or links to the same we can share with the City Council.

Share this petition

Help this petition to reach more signatures.

How to promote a petition?

• Share the petition on your Facebook wall and in groups related to the topic of your petition.
• Contact your friends
  1. Write a message where you explain why you have signed this petition, since people are more likely to sign it if they understand how important the topic is.
  2. Copy and paste the web address of the petition into your message.
  3. Send the message using email, SMS, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Skype, Instagram and LinkedIn.