The Perry City Council, concerned about the county’s proposed route for the Perry-to-Woodward bike link trail, plans to start its May 18 meeting an hour early and then recess and reconvene at 7 p.m. at Forest Park Museum near Perry in order to attend the Dallas County Conservation Board’s public hearing on the trail route.
The council wants to make its views known to the conservation board, which last month surprised city leaders when it voted to pursue the possibility of linking Perry and Bouton with a trail along Iowa Highway 141. The county’s previous design plans and feasibility studies led many observers to conclude the likeliest route would follow more or less the abandoned right of way of the former Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad.
Dallas County Conservation Executive Director Mike Wallace said Thursday the question of the connector trail’s route is still wide open and no final decisions have been made.
“The first option isn’t totally out,” Wallace said. “We haven’t figured it out yet. Some of the options are more promising than others, but none is the perfect solution. We’re not saying, ‘No,’ to any options. We’re saying, ‘Let’s look over here. What are the possibilities here?’ It could turn out that 141 might have more obstacles than some other options, but until we look, we don’t know.”
Wallace said the conservation board’s April resolution has not changed his overall approach to the project.
“We’re trying to build a trail connecting Perry and Woodward. Period. That is still the goal,” he said.
Wallace also noted the Dallas County Conservation Board is “probably the most progressive conservation board for trails in the state. We’ve been a leader in building trails for years.”
“We’re trying to build a trail connecting Perry and Woodward. Period. That is still the goal.” –Mike Wallace
Towns along the proposed trail seem eager to link the two major tourist attractions, the 25-mile High Trestle Trail and the 89-mile Raccoon River Valley Trail. Woodward Mayor Brian Devick said the route for the connector trail is still an open question as far as he knows.
“I don’t think the county’s reached a final decision at this point on anything,” Devick said Thursday. “I think thy’re still looking at options. They’re going through the process and checking out all the options that they’ve got, and I think that’s a good thing. Mike (Wallace) is doing a great job of looking at all the options and working with his engineer and trying to put that together.”
Devick sees benefits to a Woodward-to-Perry trail regardless of the route.
“So far the High Trestle Trail’s been a wonderful thing for our town and our community,” Devick said. “We are supportive of the connection between Perry and Woodward. I’m definitely supportive of it. It will link two major trails together and hopefully bring even more business and tourism into our community, and that’s always a good thing for a small town.”
Bouton Mayor Tim Hudspeth also favors the trail, but he understands some of the obstacles to the so-called first option along the former railroad right of way.
“I would’ve just as soon it come through town,” Hudspeth said, “but with the railroad right of way being sold off pretty much between Woodward and Perry, that wasn’t an option, so there’s not much that can be done with that. I know they talked about running out west of town on the gravel somewhere and along Park Street coming into Perry, but I guess they elected not to do that.”
Hudspeth said the county “talked about adding on to the shoulder and paving it, but you’ve got a bit of a wash out at the bottom of the hill, and I don’t know what they’d do there. I know they tried a number of options and (Iowa Highway 141) was probably the best one they could come up with.”
Hudspeth, elected Bouton’s mayor in 2011 on a write-in campaign, said whichever route the county chooses will be good for Bouton.
“I don’t have a real strong opinion either way on the route,” he said. “To be honest, I would have never anticipated the crowd. I had no idea the High Trestle Trail in Woodward would be as big an impact as it was. Anytime the weather’s nice and you drive by there, you see people coming and going. I assume we’re not going to see the volume that Woodward sees, but as I say, we’ll take what we can get.”
Perry Mayor Jay Pattee also sees the link trail’s potential as a motor for economic development. He described a conversation he had recently with bike riders in Madrid. When they learned he was from Perry, he said, “They told us, ‘When that connection goes through, hang on to your hats. Perry is set up to be the hub of that connection between the Raccoon River Valley Trail and the High Trestle Trail,’ and they said, ‘I think you’re going to be amazed at the traffic that will come through your towns.'”
Pattee said the Dallas County Conservation Board’s April decision to look more closely at a route along Iowa Highway 141 and its May 18 public hearing on the question were well timed.
“This is something that is sitting at a really good time in the middle of Bike Month,” Pattee said at last week’s city council meeting. “There’s been a lot of discussion about the trail connection because, mostly, about how it’s going to go through Perry, which directly involves Perry and directly involves the investment that the city has made up to this point in time.”
Pattee noted the city’s investment in planning the in-town portion of the trail, including the extension of North Street and the development of the downtown trailhead. Arrangements have also been made with property owners within the city willing to donate land for the trail connection, he said.
“There are a lot of different questions,” he said, “and that’s why we’re really concerned about it, and hopefully there are some folks from the community, too, that might have some input at that public meeting.”
Council member Dr. Randy McCaulley also emphasized the impact of the proposed route.
“Decisions that are going to be made regarding this trail, I mean, it’s really, really an important topic for economic development for Perry as well as just marketing our city,” McCaulley said.
Council member Chuck Schott encouraged citywide participation in the May 18 meeting.
“I think it would be nice and important that the citizens are there so that the conservation board realizes it’s not just city hall. It’s the actual citizens of Perry that are interested in this and concerned about this.”
The city council’s discussion of the connector trail can be seen in the following video, used courtesy of Pegasus TV 12, Perry’s public-access television station. The council’s discussion of the trail issue starts at 35:40.
