Central City trail planners seek another route after NRD rejection

The Central Platte Natural Resources District's rejection last week of an interlocal agreement to develop an eight-mile trail south of Central City has left the project's planners looking for another public body to take control of it.

Pat Carlson, chairwoman of the Central City Community Trails Committee, said she'll look to nearby cities and counties as a second option, though she said those plans haven't yet been determined.

"We don't know what Plan B is," she said. "We're working on it."

By a 9-7 count, the district's board voted down a plan Thursday that would have called for it to take the title to the property for the trail and head up the construction and maintenance efforts with help from six other public entities, said Ron Bishop, the district's manager.

The proposal also would have required the NRD to contribute $1,000 a year to a maintenance fund.

It would have involved the Upper Big Blue NRD, Merrick and Hamilton counties, the cities of Central City and Aurora and the village of Marquette.

None of those entities have committed to the project, but all have discussed it with NRD officials, Bishop said.

He said there was little discussion of the issue at the meeting, but some board members expressed reservations about the possible responsibilities and legal liabilities involved with holding the title to the land.

The board has not directed the district's officials to do anything with the project, he said. It only rejected the proposal as it was presented.

"What they might do with a different agreement, I don't know," Bishop said.

Plans for the trail have drawn opposition from local landowners, who contended at an NRD meeting last spring that their property rights were violated when the railroad's right of way was sold.

Bishop said a petition with about 600 signatures opposing the trail was submitted to the board along with letters in favor of the project.

The Nebraska Trails Foundation bought the stretch of railroad right-of-way for $150,000 from Burlington Northern Santa Fe in 2006, hoping to turn it into a trail for hiking, biking and horseback riding.

But the trail, which runs from the south side of Central City to a mile south of Marquette, must be owned by a government entity in order to qualify for a grant that would help pay for its development costs.

The annual deadline for that grant is June 1, leaving the project unlikely to find a public owner for this year's round of funding, Carlson said.

Though upset at the NRD's vote, she was confident the trail would someday be completed.

"It's going to happen. I mean, we still have the land," she said. "It just gets put off."

The grant would fund 80 percent of the trail's construction, while the value of the land would cover the 20 percent required matching funds, Carlson said.

She will start her search for a new titleholder with the city of Central City. City Administrator Chris Anderson said the trail is scheduled to be on the agenda for the city council's next meeting May 12.

Anderson said the council has been very interested in the past in improving the few miles to its immediate south, but less concerned about land south of the Platte River, in Hamilton County.

"I think we're just going to feel the council out and see how involved they want to be," he said.