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The Kosciusko County Department of Parks and Recreation Board discussed Ride+Walk Kosciusko’s push to have a countywide focus and how the two entities can work together for the visionary trails plan of the county Thursday.
Board Vice President Aggie Sweeney said, “We’re a five-member board of volunteers and to put forward a countywide trail system and make it a reality feels rather daunting.”
She spoke of partnering with Ride+Walk and other entities in the county and how it makes sense to take advantage of their experience and knowledge.
Ride+Walk Committee Chair Justin Taylor proposed a quarterly meeting between Ride+Walk and the board to further the county-wide trails plan, with a representative of the board setting the agenda and leading the discussion and Ride+Walk hosting the meeting and taking care of the technicalities.
Board member Mike Cusick mentioned that Sweeney already regularly attends Ride+Walk meetings and can keep everyone on the board updated on regular business.
“As we identify priority projects and start working on them, we might need to figure out a more regular basis to meet as well,” he said.
In other business, the board heard an update from John Nelson with VS Engineering, who presented the first pay application from Niblock of $143,094.60 for completing 15% of the work on the Chinworth trail. The board approved the payment.
The project has run into a few unknown utilities in the course of the work, but the projected completion time for the trail remains the same at sometime near the end of July or August. Though the crew had to remove a memorial tree, Nelson was able to save the attachments to the tree and give the items to the family. Nelson will know the end date of the project by the next meeting so the board can plan the future ribbon cutting ceremony.
There was a brief discussion about signage on the trail and Nelson agreed to bring some quotes for two small signs for the Chinworth trail to the next board meeting.
Kosciusko County Community Coordinator Amy Roe gave an update on the funding available with the Community Amenity Program committee overseen by K21. The $5 million has been earmarked for community amenity projects in small communities.
Roe said her role has changed in that now she is acting more as a “project navigator” and helping the entities in the small communities of the county to move projects forward in whatever ways they need. The letter of intent that needs to be submitted to the CAP committee now excludes the financial component and the process will be simpler for small communities when submitting a project to the committee.
The Pierceton Connection trail will probably be tabled for awhile until more details can be ironed out. The Syracuse-Wawasee trail project will receive the focus going forward as issues with the Indiana Department of Transportation regarding traffic safety have been resolved and the project is the furthest along out of the trail projects in the county. Roe promised to share her list of county projects with the board.
In further business, Cusick will be absent from the next meeting and a link to the master trails plan will be posted on the Kosciusko County website as soon as possible.
Matt Metzger and Troy Turley were absent from the June meeting.
The next meeting of the board will be at 1 p.m. July 17 in the old courtroom.
