AGNEW — Residents of a small neighborhood here are wondering why Olympic Discovery Trail is going to be within a stone’s throw of their homes when they don’t want it adjacent to their backyards.
Gale Briesenick and Mikel Chapman are neighbors on Westwind Drive, a short road off North Barr Road between U.S. Highway 101 and Old Olympic Highway.
Both women say privacy and safety were the main reasons their families purchased homes in that area.
But a county decision to locate a section of the trail near their homes is jeopardizing both, they say.
Neither wants Olympic Discovery Trail adjacent to their property — both are worried they may be forced to move to avoid trail-related problems.
“I don’t know why they want to shove this one down our throat,” Chapman said Tuesday.
“I don’t know how we can say it any louder or clearer,” Briesenick added, noting the neighborhood’s objection to the trail. “We have done everything we can to let them know we don’t want it.”
County Administrator Dan Engelbertson could not be reached for comment Tuesday on the women’s objections.
Briesenick is dismayed she and other Westwind Drive residents did not have a say in the trail’s construction through their neighborhood.
“It’s 20 feet off my property line,” Briesenick, who has lived in the neighborhood six years, said. “They say, ‘It doesn’t impact you.’ But I say, ‘C’mon guys.”‘
Rich James, in charge of the trail for the Clallam County Department of Community Development, said topography in Agnew limited trail options.
In this case, McDonnell Creek was the limiting factor — there are only one or two places where the creek could be crossed, James said.
Briesenick said the county upset neighborhood residents by failing to tell them of the trail’s course before sending surveyors to delineate the path.
“We didn’t know it was coming,” Briesenick said.
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