POST

Open Space Guardians

POST currently owns over two dozen properties comprising more than 15,000 acres of land in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. Though POST aims to transfer much of its lands to parks agencies for permanent protection, circumstances often require POST ownership for several years. Under POST’s ownership, most of these properties are not open to the general public, although many will eventually become public parks and preserves.

In order to be good stewards of this land, POST needs to inspect the properties on a regular basis to ensure that both human damage (such as trespassing, vandalism and dumping) and natural damage (such as storm damage and landslides) are identified and reported to ensure timely restoration or repair. To provide this level of stewardship, POST has teams of “Open Space Guardians” that visit and inspect the properties and report back to staff. The teams are trained by POST, but operate with limited direct supervision.

Qualifications

As an Open Space Guardian you should be in good physical health, enjoy hiking and the outdoors, and be available to conduct property inspections four to six times a year, with a commitment of a least two years.

Responsibilities

You will join a team of three to six people that will be assigned to visit one of POST’s properties in your own vehicles four to six times a year. In addition, you will attend an annual training meeting. Your job is to traverse the property, looking for signs of human or natural damage or other concerns, and take notes and photographs to document these issues as necessary. Some additional time will be required after the field visit to complete a written report and return it to POST.

POST will occasionally ask Open Space Guardian teams to complete a special project such as monitoring a grazing operation or collecting GPS data about property features. POST will provide training and supervision for these projects.