Charles City Parks & Rec Board OKs pursuit of trail grants

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Parks and Recreation Board is hot on the trail of city trail improvements.

Board members spent much of last week’s regular monthly meeting talking about the Charley Western Trail – ranging from currently needed repairs to “dreaming” of more widespread improvements and even ambitious trail expansion ideas.

Parks & Rec Board member Cory Mutch, an avid bicyclist and also co-chair of the independent Charley Westen Trail Committee, led the group through the discussion.

In the end, the board gave him permission to try to use an existing amount of money available for trail repairs to see if it can “leverage” significantly more money in trail repair and expansion grants.

The board has $167,000 available that was left over when the Charley Western Trail bridge over the Cedar River was replaced a couple of years ago. The money must be used on trail maintenance or improvements.

Most recently, the thought had been that the money would be used to repair a badly degraded section of the trail from Owen Street to 5th Street, near the Charles City High School and Middle School.

Mutch said he isn’t sure that the $167,000 will be enough to do the level of repair that section needs.

What he would really like to do, he said, is to try to leverage that money to get more funding, to not only be able to fix that section of the trail but possibly do much more.

He said he knows the project manager very well at the Rails To Trails Conservancy, a national organization that has helped fund or design a large majority of the recreational trails that, like the Charley Western Trail, were developed on abandoned railroad lines.

According to the Conservancy’s website, the organization is committed to “building a nation connected by trails,” by reimagining public spaces to “create safe ways for everyone to walk, bike and be active outdoors.”

“He has steered me in the right direction toward grants and funds that are available for recreational trails,” Mutch said about his friend with the Conservancy. “There’s a lot of them out there” with varying requirements and timeframes.

“I would like to see us take that $167,000 and turn it into way more than that, by using it as seed money for a grant so then we can do more with this trail. So we’re not using that money and then never having money to do anything else.”

Mutch gave an example of a grant that required a 20% local match. With $167,000 that could potentially bring in a grant of $835,000, or a total of more than a million dollars with the local match and the grant together.

“Some of these grants have availability up to $5 million,” Mutch said. “We may never get all $5 million – we probably won’t get all $5 million – but if I put together a good plan and show it, the money’s out there.”

Parts of the $167,000 could also be used to apply for several grants, he said, adding that the groups that have grant money available for trails “truly want to give money to projects that already have money in place.”

Mutch presented a plan that could make significant improvements in the existing trail, filling cracks and repairing the surface or even doing more such as addressing drainage issues and potentially moving the area of the trail by Riverside Drive out of the flood plain.

“Now, do you really want to talk about dreaming?” he asked the other Parks & Rec Board members.

Mutch said many of the grants have an emphasis on expanding trails, not just fixing or maintaining existing trails.

Showing maps of various parts of the city on the screen in the Zastrow Room at the public library where the group was meeting, Mutch outlined areas where the trail could be expanded.

That included from its current end near the recently relocated railroad depot, north to Sportsmen’s Park, north from there to Westwood Park, then back down to meet up with the existing trail at the cable-stay bridge.

He also talked about a plan that could expand the trail into the Maple Heights area, giving people there a safe way to walk or ride into town without having to go down Gilbert Street.

Various proposals could add another four miles to the existing 5-mile trail while also turning it into a true loop with other options.

Mutch also noted that the Charley Western Trail Committee has $40,000 to $60,000 in its account, and some of that could also be used if it could help leverage even more funding.

“Anyway, … what I want to know from the board,” Mutch said, “is do I have approval to try to extend that money that we have, to look at these dreams and ideas by being able to see if we can leverage some of that money to make some of these other things happen?

“Granted, I know … that’s a lot of money, but if we don’t try for it we’re never going to go anywhere,” he said.

The board gave unanimous approval to let Mutch explore the idea.

Mayor Dean Andrews said if nothing develops then next winter would be a good time to get bids to use the money for existing needed repairs.