LOG ROAD PULLED OFF AUCTION BLOCK

The federal government pulled Kelly Road off the auction block

again Tuesday, after environmentalists, landowners and Sonoma County officials

disagreed about who should control the scenic 26-mile logging road.

The historic timber route between Cloverdale and the Sonoma Coast was set

to be auctioned to the highest bidder Oct. 10, but critics said the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers hasn't considered future impacts of the sale.

Timber baron Paul Kelly built the $1 million private road during the 1950s

to reach a vast tract of virgin timber near the Sonoma Coast. The route

sparked a Sonoma County timber boom and was owned by a succession of logging

companies.

The Corps acquired Kelly Road from Masonite Corp. when it built Lake Sonoma

during the late 1970s and now wants to dispose of a 26-mile stretch outside

the park boundaries. Corps real estate manager Nicole Gauthier said the

federal agency doesn't have money to maintain the road and is worried about

liability.

The unpaved road, which winds through the rugged drainage of the Gualala

River, serves a number of large ranches and timber holdings between Lake

Sonoma and Annapolis, about six miles from the coast. Although the Corps says

its road is private, coastal residents use it as a shortcut to Highway 101.

At a meeting at Lake Sonoma Tuesday, environmentalists and some coastal

residents said the public should have access to Kelly Road. But Kelly Road

landowners said they should have control and the public should be kept out.

Kelly Road rancher Jerry Lewers said his deed says the road is private and

the public has no right to use it. Lewers and other ranchers said the Corps

hasn't maintained the road and hasn't kept trespassers out.

''Why not just slam the gate?'' asked one rancher. Property owners said

they're tired of trespassers and poachers on their land. Healdsburg consultant

Joe White said he plans to bid on the road and urged property owners to form

an association with him to take over the road and manage it.

Santa Rosa financier Henry Trione, who owns a large ranch on Kelly Road,

said Sonoma County should reconsider acquiring the road. County supervisors

turned down an offer to take the road in the 1970s and still are uninterested,

citing high costs to rebuild and maintain it.

But Mike Faaborg, an official with the county's regional parks department,

said the county is interested in retaining an easement over Kelly Road for

possible trail use. He said the sale should be postponed until further studies

are completed.

Conservationists said the Corps needs to do an environmental review before

any auction. Carol Vellutini of the Sierra Club said there was little notice

of the sale and the public has had too little input.

Others said a sale could lead to subdivision of the remote area. Doug

Simmonds of the Gualala River Steelhead Project said the road needs to be

repaired to halt erosion into steelhead spawning streams.

Gauthier urged Kelly Road landowners, environmentalists and coastal

residents to seek a solution and present ideas to the Corps by Nov. 1. She

said the Corps may decide to change terms of the sale based on input from

local residents. The Corps plans to do an environmental review of the sale,

which will take about two months.