“I want to assure you, you will get your trail, but we also must develop a Master Trail Plan.”
Cynthia Alamillo
City Manager
Last Friday, the Manzanita City Council convened over the construction of a new trail, tentatively named the Cherry Trail. While the trail effort has not been given the official order to break ground, the City Council has assured the Trail Access Campaign (TAC) that it will be one of the first trails to be approved under the auspice of a newly proposed Manzanita trail building “Master Plan.” This plan is designed to provide trails to the entire community allowing residents and visitors alike to embrace the walking culture that has become synonymous with Manzanita.
The goals of this plan are to ensure that all trails that get built in Manzanita are properly tended to. This includes but is not limited to: accounting for water runoff concerns, trail stability, walkability, trail maintenance, trail oversight, and liability concerns. The Master Plan will address budget and projected trail locations. TheMaster Plan will be facilitated by Chris Bernhardt (of c2recreation.com) who has been commissioned by the City Council to draft the Master Plan for approval. The scope of the Master Plan and budget will be on the Agenda for approval at the next City Council meeting on October 7. Legal oversight will be provided by City Attorney, James Walker. Projection for completion of the plan is 2-4 months.
Thomas Aschenbrener stated during the City Council meeting that: “The TAC Cherry Trail Proposal could be the model for developing these protocols for the Master Plan.” The City Council will work with the new interim City Manager to reach some method for doing this. Aschenbrener believes that the Master Plan will require the Cherry Trail proposal to be presented as a city project with support from TAC. The Memorandum presented by City Staff and approved at this September 9th Council meeting recommended that the Master Plan specifically call for Implementation of the action steps recently identified in Chris Bernhardt’s consultant’s report completed last month specifically for the Cherry Trail (including attorney review of opponent letter and obtaining an engineer’s review of the proposed Cherry Trail). James mentioned that it will be necessary to discuss some sort of agreement with TAC that identifies the roles and responsibilities of each party.
Once Chris Bernhardt completes a new Master Plan, there will need to be another city-wide public hearing to give residents the chance to voice their opinions, support, or concerns for the project before the Council can take final action. A Community involved workshop on the Cherry Trail had previously been held last month bringing better understanding of this specific trail which will now be the first new trail project under the new Master Plan.
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