Robert Doyle, general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District for the past decade and a fixture at the district for more than four decades, is retiring this week.
Nature brought us both joy and anxiety in 2020. Photo: biosfer
For many of us, it was the last straw when, in mid-August, the East Bay Regional Park District closed most of its parks because of an unprecedented number of local wildfires. Our one solution to lockdown-induced cabin fever heading for the big outdoors had been cruelly wrested away from us.
Unfortunately, nature played it both ways this year. It was also behind many of our most anxiety-inducing days whether it was the time the skies turned orange because of the devastating regional wildfires, being shaken awake by a earthquake, or another Red Flag warning putting hill residents on alert and shutting off their power.
Robert Doyle. (Photo credit: EBRPD)
Robert Doyle, the general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) who has worked in the district for 47 years, is retiring at the end of this month, the district announced.
During Doyle’s GM tenure, the EBRPD has more than doubled in size in acreage, parks and trails. The district’s acreage has grown from 59,689 to 125,186, making EBRPD the nation’s largest regional park system. Locally, Doyle was noted for helping to win a 20-year battle along the Richmond shoreline that included the creation of Dotson Family Marsh near Point Pinole, and for incrementally closing gaps in the San Francisco Bay Trail, among other accomplishments.
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By Kathy Chouteau
The Point Molate Bay Trail project has received the funding needed to complete its construction, which could be completed by the end of 2021, according to the Trails for Richmond Action Committee (TRAC).
The City of Richmond and East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) have been awarded $2.2 million in funding toward the creation of 2.5 miles of shoreline Bay Trail stretching from the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Trail to the northern border of Point Molate at Stenmark Drive.
The local funding was awarded by the California Natural Resources Agency as one part of $27.7 million for 19 different projects statewide that will increase access to the outdoors and bolster recreational opportunities for communities. Part of the Proposition 68-funded Recreational Trails and Greenways grant program, the local grants encompassed $1,000,000 for the City of Richmond and $1,202,830 for the EBRPD for the Point Molate Bay Trail project.