Putnam Park challenge grant

With the generosity of donors, we were able to match an anonymous donor’s $50,000 matching grant for projects at Helen Putnam Park.
The challenge grant improvements constitute a multi-year project, with work underway as of May 2017 and continuing until completion in 2019. With the unexpected diversion of Regional Parks’ field and planning staff in the aftermath of the wildfires, work at Putnam was delayed a bit. We appreciate the understanding and patience of park goers.

Here are some things you may have noticed in the past year:

• We partnered with the Sonoma County Trails Council to manage five volunteer workdays at Filaree Trail, realigning hundreds of feet of trail to improve trail access during the wet winter months. We were pleased to partner with the Petaluma cycling teams from Casa Grande and Petaluma High Schools, giving youth a worthwhile community service project, new skills, and team-building experiences.
• We hired sheep that grazed for three weeks in 2017 and two weeks in June 2018. The sheep reduce fuels, improve plant diversity (giving us more wildflowers to enjoy), and consume poison oak and foxtails, making the trails more attractive and safer for park visitors and their dogs.
•  We built a new custom rock retaining wall at the overlook above the pond and installed two new picnic tables. This is the first in a series of improvements to the pond area.

Regional Parks continues to make improvements to the park, such as:

• Restoration of the western half of Panorama Trail and its 47-foot-wide denuded trail climbing to the western vista.
• Trail work improving the Pomo, Ridge, and Savannah Trails and realigning the Yarrow, Cattail, and South Loop Trails. These improvements will reduce erosion, making the trails more usable in the winter, and give hikers a more comfortable and level trail surface. We also will restore habitats, including six acres of native grassland, oak woodland, and the slopes along the pond edge.
• Enhanced directional and interpretive signage throughout Putnam Park so visitors can more easily find their way and learn about special features of this popular park.

More exciting news:

• In addition to the park improvements funded by the Challenge Grant, visitors can look forward to an upgrade of the accessible parking and accessible pathway to the restrooms by the Chileno Valley Rd. entrance.
• An upcoming 40-acre expansion of Putnam Park will include parking and a trailhead near Western Avenue that will help ease street parking concerns along Oxford Court. This expansion will offer a new mile-long trail designed to gradually climb the steep terrain, accommodating a wide range of trail user abilities,  access from nearby neighborhoods, and provide spectacular new views.