Pierceton Town Councilman Glenn Hall, left, and Chad Salzbrenner, senior project manager at Fiels & Vandenbrink, give a presentation to the Kosciusko County Parks and Recreation Board Thursday on plans for a trail connecting the towns of Pierceton and Winona Lake. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Friends of the Trails is a new group of volunteers created by the Kosciusko County Parks and Recreation Board dedicated to advancing the mission of the board. The overview of the Friends of the Trails was approved by the parks board at their meeting Thursday, March 20, after a presentation by Vice President Aggie Sweeney.

“Since we got started, and even coming out of the initial five-year parks master plan, we talked about we wanted to have a friends group that would work in conjunction with the parks and recreation board to advance plans and maintenance related to things that the parks and rec. board takes on,” she said.

Initially, the focus is on trails. The first of three things she wanted to talk about in relation to the friends group was “ideas on what the Friends of the Trails group would be, kind of an overview of that whole concept.” She found many examples of what the group could be.

“We want to start simple, rather than complicated, so we start something rather than making it so complicated that nothing moves forward for a long time,” Sweeney stated. The friends group would start out as a kind of support to the parks and recreation board, not a separate 501(c)3 with its own board. It would not be overly structured, but still be supportive of what the board is doing.

Working with board member Troy Turley, she said they came up with a one-page Friends of the Trails overview, which Sweeney presented to the board Thursday. “The reason that we want to do a Friends of the Trails group is to provide a structure for volunteers that could help at any events and assist with trail maintenance. Perhaps volunteers that could organize fundraising events for specific projects and to potentially provide financial support,” Sweeney said. “We’re suggesting that friends of the trails make a contribution to a fund with a similar name that we’re anticipating will be held at the Community Foundation, but it’s not necessarily a have-to, but it’s a way to know who is supporting Friends of the Trails, who wants to get communication from us.”

She also suggested the Friends of the Trail group have its own email and Facebook page. The board approved the overview 3-0, with members Mike Cusick and Turley absent.

Sweeney then discussed the establishment of a fund at the Kosciusko County Community Foundation where they could accept contributions for the purpose of supporting trails and trails that link to trails throughout the county. She recognized they could set up the fund within county government, but for a number of reasons she and Turley leaned toward setting it up at the KCCF. “It makes less additional work on county staff to administer it, and it makes it easier to accept what may be small gifts because the Community Foundation is set up to be able to do that,” Sweeney explained.

She and Turley met with KCCF CEO Stephanie Overbey about a week ago and came back with a suggestion for the type of fund that likely would be the best for the group’s needs. Sweeney provided a copy of the draft fund agreement to the park board members. “It ended up being a fund that’s called a Field of Interest fund, and it would be nonpermanent. So when I say nonpermanent, that means it is not an endowment where the principal is invested permanently,” she said.

Park Board President Rob Bishop said the idea also should be taken to the county commissioners at their next meeting to advise them of what the board is doing. He said he thought the idea was great. Sweeney said she’ll meet with the KCCF staff and sign the fund agreement.

“I’ve agreed to do an initial $50 gift, and then it’ll be there and it’ll be officially approved by the Community Foundation Board of Directors at their next meeting, which happens to be the second week in April,” she said. “I wanted to let you know that there’s a donor, who has chosen to remain anonymous, who has said once this fund is established, that donor intends to make a $10,000 gift to it. And that gift is unrestricted, so it’s not to any particular project, but for the general purposes of this fund.”

Bishop said that was fantastic. He also said the friends group was part of the master plan that was approved, but he thought they should just let the commissioners know about it being formed.

Another presentation to the board was made by Pierceton Town Councilman Glenn Hall and Chad Salzbrenner, senior project manager at Fiels & Vandenbrink.

“When I ran for town council a year and a half ago, I made it very, very clear that one of my dreams and visions was to see Pierceton become a destination point on the county trail system,” Hall said. The town has started putting some “feet” under that vision of what a trail extension might look like from Winona Lake to Pierceton and how it might be paid for. They’ve been working with Kosciusko County Community Coordinator Amy Roe on trying to figure out how the county might support making Pierceton a destination spot on the trail system, he said.Salzbrenner said stakeholders got together and looked at potential routes of connecting Pierceton and Winona Lake. At the Feb. 4 meeting, they discussed good and bad routes and some options.

“We essentially came up with potentially four main routes,” he said. Based on the stakeholders’ conversations about those four main routes, Salzbrenner came up with a map and started putting together project costs. “… The four routes really turned into 14 routes because we started looking at” various factors. At another meeting in March, they came to the conclusion that it was better to use mitigation for a trail as opposed to boardwalks based upon the cost of boardwalks. There was discussion on phasing the project instead of all at once. Salzbrenner said it makes sense to start the trail at Pierceton because it wouldn’t be advantageous to start at Winona Lake based on all the other funding Winona Lake has already received for projects.

“I believe all these routes start with the park on the southwest side of town. And then the preferred option was to go through Deeds Creek, then go to Pierceton Road and then to use Washington Road to get to the southeast side of Wooster (Road),” Salzbrenner said, estimating the cost of that project to be around $3 million. He said they just wanted to explain the project and get it on the county parks board’s radar now, but may in the future approach the board about a letter of support.

In other business, the board:

• Provided a letter of support for the Wawasee-Syracuse Trails’ South Project. Tracey Ford, the new executive director of the Wawasee-Syracuse Trails, thanked the board for the letter of support and updated them on the project. “Wawasee South is such a great and transformative project for us, as you all know. It’s going to do so many things. This little 2.2-mile section of trail is the next level expansion for us because it’s going to provide a school-to-school connection for our Syracuse students and their families. It’s also going to be easy access for our South Shore/Lake Wawasee residents. Right now they have to jump on (SR) 13 to get to our Conklin Bay segment, and anybody that’s been on 13 knows that’s not always the place that you want to be when you’re biking, walking or rolling,” she said.

USI Consulting is conducting the engineering phase of the project for that first 1.2 miles, Ford said. “So, if you’re familiar with the area, it’s going to be right off 13, Grandview to Ideal Beach.”Fundraising is in the works.

• Formally approved the greenways and blueways trail master plan and design documents, as discussed with Katie Clark representing TSW Design. Those will be presented to the county commissioners at 9 a.m. March 25, to the county council at 6 p.m. April 10 and tentatively to the Area Plan Commission at 1 p.m. April 2.

• Announced the next Parks Board meeting is 1 p.m. April 17 in the old courtroom of the county courthouse.