Teen loves quiet beauty of parks

My name is Courtney Kilbane. I'm 13 years old and have lived in Thousand Oaks my whole life. Some people don't realize that we kids and teenagers appreciate the natural beauty of Thousand Oaks.

I have recently hiked all of Sycamore Canyon, and I saw the most amazing things. It was so peaceful and relaxing. After the hike, I was just saying how nice it is that we have a place like this out here and how lucky I am.

Then I heard about how people were going to ruin it for some obnoxious, huge event area. I was honestly devastated. I had butterflies in my stomach just thinking about how heartless someone could be to want to destroy all of the mountains for a stupid idea like this. It's some place for teenagers to escape all of the annoying things that happen at school and etc.

It is certainly no picnic to be a 13-year-old teenage girl, so having some place to go where you can get your mind off of everything is great. As silly as it sounds, having somewhere to just let all of your emotions out helps us do better in school.

We don't have to bottle it all up and overstress while trying to get good grades. You should not build a loud business/family events area at Rancho Potrero.

All of the kids are the future of Thousand Oaks because most of us will start a family out here and have our kids grow up here. I am concerned about this because we don't need a place for huge events. Wasn't the point of having hiking trails to let people enjoy the calm, peacefulness of this natural hiking experience?

You have to admit that the best part about being where we live is the gorgeous mountains and greens.

I am not even bothering to consider that children and teens are growing up in this area and we aren't going to let them have the thrill of experiencing what I got to because all of it is gone.

It's rare to have a place like Rancho Potrero. Are you not even thinking about that?

Find somewhere else to build your noisy, obscene party center. Those parties are going to add so much trash to this clean, healthy environment. Aside from the loud music and people shouting, it will be even harder to enjoy the hiking trails with a huge trash wasteland in our natural mountains.

Please, please, please do not build this large event place in our beautiful Rancho Potrero.

Think of all the kids that have futures out here. Do you want to just take all of this away from them and their kids?
Courtney Kilbane
Thousand Oaks