CEDAR HILLS — While snow lovers aren't exactly welcome on the powdery hillside considered prime sledding ground and now part of the Cedar Hills Golf Club course, they no longer have to worry about being cited for trespassing.
Cedar Hills officials are quietly retreating from earlier efforts to keep sledders off golf course property.
City manager Konrad Hildebrandt said he discussed the issue with the city council on Tuesday and the general consensus was to let residents go ahead and sled.
"We'll just reseed in the spring," Hildebrandt said. "They (the council) want to pull back the cavalry. It's not worth fighting."
Last Saturday, police were called to clear the area of some 90 people who had ignored trespassing signs and continued sledding on the hill.
Hildebrandt said golf club officials estimate it will cost about $1,000 to reseed and repair the damage this spring.
Area residents are jubilant.
Some had even offered to pay to go sledding to help raise funds to pay for reseeding. Hildebrandt had jokingly suggested putting up various colored flags to indicate good sledding and poor sledding days to help mitigate damage.
"We're just not going to actively enforce it. Right now, we have 30 or more trespassing signs up. We'll take them all down but for a couple," Hildebrandt said.
"We see two problems with the way the police were handling the situation," said Angela Bartlett, who lives across the street from the sledding hill.
"First, they are causing a rift between the public and the law enforcement. Little kids are having so much fun and suddenly the big, bad cops come and kick them off the hill.
"Second, this situation is causing more and more people to be deceitful and to lie. We watch daily as the cops tell people to leave, and then we wait a good 30 minutes and everyone has returned.
Bartlett said it appears most of the sledding is on areas covered by weeds and not on the seeded areas.
"People want to sled there. It is the safest place around to sled and it is a good-size hill."
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com