Trouble near Paradise Point

On a rainy fall day, Bill Dygert stood on the peak of a hill overlooking the East Fork of the Lewis River, waving his arm in the general direction of Mount Hood. When the weather is clear, you can see all the way to the mountain from this property just west of La Center, he said.

Dygert, who now lives in Astoria, Ore., knows this land well. After all, he helped Clark County buy it. As an independent consultant for the county in the 1990s, Dygert helped identify properties and the funding to buy them for conservation and future recreation.

The long-term plan, which has not yet come to fruition, is to place trails and recreation areas along the river, using adjacent properties, such as these 20 acres, for trailheads, parking lots or picnic shelters.

But these 20 acres may soon be removed from county ownership. Republican county Councilor Tom Mielke, in his effort to sell excess property, has been eyeing these two parcels just east of Paradise Point State Park — one of 15 acres and one of 5 acres. He’d use the proceeds to purchase property for a multi-use trail leading to Sunset Campground in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

“This parcel here has never been used for the intent of what it was purchased,” Mielke said at an August council meeting. “It does not border the East Fork at all, and we have all these trails in segments and nothing is connected. I get excited when we look at other parcels to truly get out there and connect these.”

Dygert and members of the conservation group Friends of Clark County are protesting a sale, saying the land would be better off being kept for an extensive trail system leading all along the riverfront, most of which is county owned.

The 20 acres were purchased in 1996 for $395,500 as part of a larger $1.79 million purchase of 243 acres along the East Fork of Lewis River. Of those, 178 acres, including the lots being considered by the council, were purchased from Eleanor and Francis Pearson. Dygert called those 178 acres the “nesting site” that made the rest of the purchase worthwhile. It is rare to find such a large swath of relatively untouched riverfront property to buy, he said.

“This is the magic that made the whole thing happen,” Dygert said.

But selling this acreage is not as simple as, for example, the county’s recent surplus of the Dolle Building in downtown Vancouver. The county cannot just declare the property surplus and put it on the auction block, because it was purchased with state grant funding. Therefore, the sale must be approved by the state Recreation and Conservation Office.