We live in a nice quiet area surrounded by well maintained woods and parks with miles of litter-free trails. These parks are well maintained now by the locals who use them. The hikers and joggers leave no litter, and the dog walkers leave no residuals.

The area that I am referring to is the wooded acreage bounded by Juanita Drive on the east, Holmes Point Drive on the north and 72nd Northeast on the west. The area needs no “improvement” or meddling either by King County or by the city of Kirkland. It is just fine the way it is now.

I have heard rumors of a picnic area in there with a maintenance road. There are plenty of picnic areas now at both St. Edward State Park and at Juanita Beach. I can’t imagine anybody picnicking there over the two previously named sites.

With picnic areas, garbage cans are needed. Animals will surely get into them. In no way do any of us in the neighborhood want a maintenance road into a proposed picnic area. If a road were put in there I wouldn’t be surprised if some upset neighbors would do what they could to cog such a road. Don’t do it.

I heard that a trail has been proposed with some apple trees so people can pick apples. Who wants apples with worms in them? I’m sure that every apple in our area is wormy. That was the reason that I cut my apple trees down two years ago. I couldn’t get rid of the worms.

And the city wants to get rid of blackberries because they are invasive. Yes, they are invasive and they are all over western Washington. You will never get rid of them. Many jars of jam, jelly and many blackberry pies are a result of blackberries in the late summer. None go to waste. We in the neighborhood are happy to pick them. Leave them alone.

We do love our park just the way it is, so please stay out of it. You cannot improve it. You will only create problems and piss off many of us living in this beautiful area. Take your money some place else and do something good with it. Feed some homeless people or take it to probably a multitude of areas that could use it.

Tony Zimmerman, Kirkland