The Peninsula Girl Scouts are mobilizing against a Woodside law that prohibits their day camp buses from driving the last half-mile of Kings Mountain Road to the entrance of Huddart Park.

The town ordinance, quietly passed in the fall, bans large vehicles over 35 feet in length. Hundreds of children from across the Peninsula attend the annual summer camp that's been held for decades at Huddart Park, located at 1100 Kings Mountain Road, with most arriving daily by bus.

Peninsula Girl Scout Day Camp Director Monica Curtis said the change "severely impacts" campers — there are 500 children and volunteers coming to the camp this year — and the organization relies on a fleet of chartered buses to get them to the day camp site for two weeks in mid-July. If the town doesn't change the ordinance or make an exception for the Girl Scouts, they'll be forced to have their campers walk the last mile into the Huddart camp, organizers said.

"The town of Woodside has put us in an impossible situation where we have limited options but our focus will always be the campers and sharing the camp experience with the children of our community," said Curtis in an email to fellow Girl Scouts. "We strongly feel the ordinance is an attack on youth organizations that utilize Huddart Park, for this is the only accessible entrance."

The group is set to meet with Town Manager Kevin Bryant about logistics on Wednesday, June 21, after The Almanac's Wednesday afternoon press deadline.

Mayor Chris Shaw said that "a solution was already in the works," he said.

"Everybody will get to camp," he said. "Any time stuff like this happens, the culture of the Town Council and senior staff is, 'How do we make this work for everybody?'"

NBC Bay Area published a story last week on the ordinance after the Girl Scouts in an email urged people with connections to newspapers, news stations, lawyers, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department and Woodside Town Hall to help the group. Shaw said the Girl Scouts campaign calling out Woodside over the ordinance "is wholly unnecessary."

Transportation using electric buses is costing the Girl Scouts $75,000 this year, which helps make the camp accessible to families who can't make the drive out to the park. The group cannot afford to double its transportation costs by contracting out for shorter, 30-foot buses, which cost about the same as the bigger buses but carry fewer campers, said Michelle Myhre Murphy, a volunteer with the Girl Scouts. Buses are expensive because drivers need to be highly trained and the bus schedule is already set, she said.

"The additional cars on the road will not only create congestion but also pose potential safety hazards for both camp participants and residents commuting in the area by car or bike," organizers said. "It seems like it's very short-sighted for the town of Woodside to put an ordinance that limits access to a county park in place. ... Families are really upset — some won't be able to attend."

Myhre Murphy said the Peninsula Day Camp group called town staff on May 30, and has made many phone calls and emails since then, to voice concern about the impact it will have on the camp.

The group said it submitted a permit request on June 12 and was informed it was on "hold" because the electric buses it is set to use are 39.5 feet long. Historically, its buses have been even bigger, at 40 to 45 feet long.

On June 15 the town denied the permit via email, stating: "I spoke with our Senior Engineer, Sindhi, and she reaffirmed we will not allow buses over 38 (feet). The town will not issue a transportation permit for the buses you are proposing due to the 39.5 feet size of the bus and the road restrictions."

Myhre Murphy said that typically there's a call or conversation with town officials before decisions that affect the summer camp are made.

"We feel this ordinance was written and adopted to specifically target organizations that serve our communities' youth, in particular summer camps," she said. "It is clear from the Town Council minutes that Town of Woodside staff and council members made little to no effort to contact and engage other stakeholders who would be adversely impacted by the adoption of this ordinance."

Addressing the Girls Scouts' concerns they were blindsided, Shaw said that it's typical whenever the town is going to make a change for it to be publicly noticed in an agendized meeting.

"Do we reach out to every potential group that might be affected?" he said. "We were not purposeful in not including all stakeholders. We (the Town Council) certainly have had conversations about impact on Kings Mountain Road specifically."

Town's rationale for new law

Shaw said with the long-term closure of Highway 84 that started in early March, the town can't afford to have Kings Mountain Road blocked if a bus ends up going off the road or can't make turns, especially heading into fire season. The town's ordinance was not arbitrary, he said.

Shaw said it's not an infrequent occurrence for long vehicles to not be able to get around Kings Mountain's hairpin turns or to cause traffic to back up on the roadway.

The long school buses use the majority of the opposing lane to navigate the turns, according to an October 2022 staff report. Staff has received several reports from residents of near misses between the buses and cyclists.

Town staff reached out to San Mateo County Parks about this concern and in 2019 installed an advisory sign at Entrance Way, according to the staff report.

"There are other types of medium-sized school buses that could be used to safely navigate the roadway," according to the ordinance. "However, because the buses are contracted out with different drivers and bus companies for different events, and because the sign is advisory only, there have continued to be reported incidents of oversized buses and other vehicles using the roadway."

In the past, representatives of Peninsula Day Camp were invited to speak at Town Hall meetings when there have been concerns about buses and traffic safety.

"That was not the case this past fall," Girl Scouts organizers said. "We (nor any other stakeholder) was informed about the change in ordinance. We were completely surprised on May 28 when we did a site walk and noticed a newly posted traffic sign."

What happens if Woodside doesn't change the ordinance

Girl Scout campers will walk a fairly flat shaded route into Huddart Park if the buses can't drive all the way in, organizers said.

"While we firmly believe the safest option is to have the buses drive into Huddart Park and unload campers within the park, this option may not be possible for us and it is precedent for other Girl Scout camps to have campers walk around half a mile to camp sites, which is the position the Town of Woodside will be putting our camp in," they said.

The group will have to shift morning and afternoon operations and "it doesn't even begin to address what to do with people who can't make that walk," Myhre Murphy said.

They plan to have signage, crossing guards and volunteers helping campers and volunteers unload safely, stopping traffic in both directions so everyone can safely cross Woodside Road and walk Greer Road to the Huddart Park Meadow Area access point. This access point only allows people to walk in, no cars or buses. Once there, the group will have its morning and afternoon flag ceremonies in the Meadow Area to be closer to where the campers are accessing the park.

About the Girl Scout camp

The day camp was established in 1948. It teaches children outdoor skills, hiking, singing, cooking and crafts, holds a sleep-over under the stars and helps in new friends. The camp came to use buses for the camp about 35 years ago when the town of Woodside asked organizers for a solution to reduce traffic.

The camp contracts out for the buses, which pick up campers from seven stops across the Peninsula, from Millbrae to Menlo Park.

Impact on other groups

The Friends of Huddart and Wunderlich Parks found itself needing to "scramble" to move about 125 students from East Palo Alto Charter School and Redwood City Early Childhood Development Center who were signed up for the hiking program in Huddart Park to Wunderlich Park in early June, according to Executive Director Kym Teppo.

The over 20-year-old nonprofit, which offers field trips that include history lessons and hikes for elementary school aged children, special education students, homeschooled students and corporate entities, only learned about the change through the County Parks Department, she said. During 2022-23 school year, the nonprofit hiked with 1,087 kids in the park, 70% of whom are from underserved populations who lack access to private vehicles and parent chaperones.

"These kids wouldn't be able to go on a field trip if we didn't arrange and pay for busing, we worked with (San Mateo County) Parks to accommodate them to another location," she said.

Teppo said Wunderlich is not an ideal spot for the programming her group does because the terrain is more challenging and doesn't have the same diversity of habitat. The hiking program has already been developed at Huddart and there's a quarter-mile loop trail with lots of ecosystems in that short distance, she said.

Teppo said the nonprofit hasn't had an incident with buses in the 20 years as far as she is aware. She said she understands it's a mountainous road and residents have safety concerns, but there might be other solutions that don't impact taxpayers and the broader community's ability to access Huddart Park.

Upcoming meeting

The Girl Scouts day camp group plans to come to an upcoming June 27 Woodside Town Council meeting to speak about their concerns about the ordinance, regardless of whether the town decides to grant it an exception.

The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. on Zoom and in Independence Hall, 2955 Woodside Road.