10/31/2009 4:17:00 PM Verde Front at the forefront
VVN file photos
From the Black Hills to the north (above) to Beasley Flats to the south (below), the Verde Front is the center of a regional planning effort.
CAMP VERDE - Wednesday, the Camp Verde Town Council, and much of the public for that matter, will hear of a regional planning effort instigated by the Prescott National Forest known as the Verde Front.
As defined by the Prescott National Forest, the Verde Front extends from Beasley Flat on the south, to Clarkdale and Jerome on the north, from the Verde River on the east to the crest of the Black Hills, between Squaw Peak and Woodchute Wilderness Area, on the west.
The project area also includes the Verde River Corridor managed by Arizona State Parks.
The idea is to include the desires of the Verde Valley communities as Prescott National Forest plans for future recreational opportunities.
"We don't want to have a plan and take it to the communities. We want to get input on what they want before a plan is made," says Chip Norton, a member of the Verde Front Planning Committee.
The planning committee came about following a forum hosted by the Sedona/Verde Valley League of Women voters last year that produced a document known as the Verde Valley Landscape Vision.
Essentially it is a vision of what the public wants the Verde Valley to look like in 20 to 50 years. That vision emphasized the need for recreational opportunities as well as the protection of natural resources, open space and the valley's historic and cultural assets.
The committee has been meeting since last spring and has received support from in the form of resolutions from the councils of Jerome, Clarkdale and Cottonwood in addition to the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors.
"The goal is to develop some short-term, medium-term and long-term projects," Norton says. "The Forest Service is interested in identifying some projects that can happen fairly quickly and get into them, so the community can see this isn't some big vague concept where people meet for 10 years and nothing happens."
The first round of public meetings include a meeting in Cottonwood at the Public Safety Building on Dec. 7 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. and at the Camp Verde Ranger Station on Dec. 10 from 6 to 8:30 p.m.
