TOW Subcommittee Meeting Oct. 9, 2003

City Hall

Pursuant to the requests of the TOW members from the meeting of Oct 7, 2003, John Hjelle and Dave Bakken met with Jerry Freund and Rick Edwards at City Hall at 10:30 am, Oct 9, 2003. The initial discussion consisted of reviewing the activities of TOW in its efforts to develop a trail from Montgomery Street through Bowstring Bridge to the Fish Hatchery with a connector past new Walmart to Freeport, and a brief reference to the backbone loop trail concept with connectors to more remote trail systems. This included but was not limited to multiple discussions with property owners, DNR, County Supervisors, County Conservation Commission, City Council, (public and small group), Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, Iowa DOT, local, state and national advisory and advocacy groups, grant writing groups, tourism organizations, Silos and Smokestacks, and others listed in the minutes which may be found on the web site trailsofwinneshiek.org The TEA-21 grant was noted.

The reality of limitations beyond which it is not possible for TOW to proceed was defined with the growing frustration of the membership with the current impasse. Simply put, it is not possible for TOW to effectively accomplish much more without assistance from entities that have the political, financial, and technical, capabilities to sponsor trail development from inception to completion.

Many obstacles yet need to be overcome. Decisions on ownership; maintenance issues; contracting for engineering, construction, and inspection; funding; grant receipt and administration; cooperative agreements; land acquisition; property owner issues; legal issues; public forums and relations; parochialism; special interests and private agendas; and presumably many unanticipated issues still require sponsorship and action.

In order for the groundwork that has been laid to continue, an organizational meeting of all potential players should be called to clarify issues and assign responsibility. Ideally the initial meeting would include City Council, Parks and Rec, County Supervisors, County Conservation, DNR, Iowa Natural Heritage and possibly others. The agenda should include at least the above detailed topics with free-flow format leading to empowerment of a central authority, or, at least, a working coalition.

John will submit a list of agenda items to Jerry, Rick, and Dave, and that will be refined into an agenda or talking points from which to launch discussion. Jerry will schedule a meeting of all parties as early as possible.