Petaluma council weighs options after city review finds no clear ownership of crumbling downtown trestle

Petaluma’s council spent the largest portion of its March 23 goals-and-priorities workshop on the deteriorating downtown trestle, where residents described the structure as an eyesore, a safety hazard and an economic drag, and staff outlined records and permit work showing the city likely does not control the structure.

City Attorney Eric Danley told the council that title research and a review of historic easements indicate the rail easement granted for the trestle likely expired 90 days after rail use was abandoned and that the land and improvements now appear to overlie state tidelands. “We find no city ownership interest at all either to the land, the wharf, the trestle, or the underlying state lands,” Danley said, adding that successors to the McNear company—identified in records as MKD Great Petaluma Mill LLC—may hold some claims to improvements but that the…