Cancelled: Public Meeting on Lindly Park

Lower Alsea estuary.\Photo by Rena Olson.

This meeting has been cancelled due to weather preventing a key speaker from appearing. It has been rescheduled to March 16, same place and time.

A public meeting on the future of Don Lindly Park on the Alsea will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 4-6 p.m., in the Central Coast Fire Town Hall, 145 N.W. Alsea Hwy in Waldport.

The purpose of the meeting, organized by Lincoln County Parks and the Oregon Marine Board, is to seek public input on a plan to heavily develop the park with a public boat ramp, docks, parking and sanitation. The park, located on the Alsea River off Hwy 34 at Milepost 7, contains wetlands and tidal forest.

The county has a 40-year lease on the property with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), who used federal fish restoration dollars to purchase the property. The facility is currently open spring through fall for bank river access, and is regularly flooded. The county’s lease is dependent on developing the property, according to a now-outdated plan made with ODFW and the Oregon Marine Board. The county obtained a conditional use permit to proceed with development, but this plan was turned down by the Department of State Lands due to the fact that some of the property is wetlands. Lincoln County now has new leadership, and is first seeking public feedback on what should be done with the property before deciding how to proceed.

The meeting is an opportunity to call on the county to abandon plans for development and instead use the park to restore wetlands and increase the estuary’s resilience and ecological health.

For more information, contact Phillip Johnson, Oregon Shores’ conservation director, at (503) 754-9303, phillip@oregonshores.org.