Erosion has taken its toll on Joaquin Miller Park's trails, which were never properly mapped. Park structures, such as Sinawik Cabin, are crumbling. Parking can be difficult and dangerous along the busy four-lane divided highway that runs past the park.

With the community's help, though, the city hopes to improve its largest and most undeveloped park.

On Saturday residents are invited to start the process of shaping what the park should look like 10 years — or even 25 — down the road. The strategic planning meeting will be from 9 a.m. to noon at the park community center, said Sue Piper, policy analyst for Councilmember Jean Quan.

Quan's office is organizing development of a plan for the park, which will ultimately go before the Oakland City Council for approval.

After reading more than 100 surveys completed on Quan's Web site, Piper said she believes most people will want to keep the park in its pristine state and concentrate on maintenance and safety issues.

The park is home to the Woodminster Amphitheater and a new playground, but most visitors come to walk or run the miles of forest trails.

According to the survey, trail walking and running are the top two uses of the park, followed by mountain biking and dog walking.

Mountain bikers are worried that the meeting will revive a decade-old push for a proposed bike ban.

In the survey, some hikers and horseback riders complained about sharing the park's narrow trails with bicyclists.

Brent Englund, spokesman for the Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay, said the group wants to preserve the multiuse nature of the trails because Joaquin Miller provides the only single-track riding in the Oakland Hills.

From our perspective, there's not a problem out there from a safety standpoint, he said.

More important for safety and the environment, he said, is rerouting trails to minimize erosion and installing better trail markers so people don't veer off the path.

Piper said she hopes the meeting won't digress over issues of park policy over conflicting uses.

"We have to figure out a way to not place blame but figure out how you deal with it," she said.

The city has a tough time controlling eucalyptus and other invasive plants, Piper said.

After the death of Miller, known as "the poet of the Sierras," his 60 acres of land was sold to a conservancy that later turned it over to the city. Combined with surrounding protected lands, it became Joaquin Miller Park in the late 1930s.

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