Charles Warren, Executive Officer of the State Lands Commission, first recruited Anne to the cause of trails or "greenways" along California's rivers while Anne was still mayor in the late 1980s. Anne was a receptive audience having made river access one of her first priorities after election to her first council term in 1971, fighting a proposal to build condominiums against levees.
Under Mr. Warren's vision, Mayor Rudin headed the California Association of Riparian Parkways ("CARP") to rally elected public officials and establish a support base for a statewide greenways plan. Despite legislation supporting the greenways, a lack of funding made it evident that this would be a long-range effort.
A few months after Mayor Rudin retired from the city council, Mr. Warren and Elizabeth Patterson,
Mr. Warren'
s deputy at State Lands, urged Mayor Rudin to form a new organization to pursue the plan for a Sacramento River Greenway on both banks of the Sacramento River. In June 1993, a letter urged Sacramento and Yolo County interests to join in this effort, creating Friends of the Sacramento River Greenway.
Mayor Rudin represented Friends of the Sacramento River Greenway in a 1990s update of the 1975 Sacramento River Parkway Master Plan that created the current extent of the Sacramento River Parkway. Working Group Community Members also included Dale Secord and Aimee Rutledge of Sacramento River Parkway Advocates.
Despite the city council's passage of an updated Sacramento River Parkway Plan in December 1997, councilmembers stripped the plan of any strategy for acquiring additional private properties or easements. As a reult, the updated plan resulted in little progress toward the Parkway's completion.
Friends of the Sacramento River Greenway was not discouraged, working with officials to update general plans to include the Parkway, and participating in and testifying before governmental agencies and committees to keep the Parkway's future alive.
Among the successes of these efforts were the conversion of the R Street railroad bridge over Interstate 5 to a bicycle and pedestrian connection, and an easement through the Le Rivage Hotel project to allow for the Parkway.
Because of ongoing confusion between the concept of the Sacramento River Greenway and the Sacramento Parkway, we recently changed our name to Friends of the Sacramento River Parkway. We intend to change our name back and resume efforts to see the Greenway's completion as soon as the Parkway's completion is assured.
Mayor Rudin remains committed to the completion of the Parkway, actively participates in
Friends of the Sacramento River Parkway, and serves as our primary spokesperson. Return to