One of the big surprises at last night's Town Board meeting was a land purchase and a shift in a grant application. I'd mentioned earlier that the Town had planned to extend the Jim Schug trail only as far as Spring House Road because they couldn't get landowner permission to go further.
Last night Town Councilman Dan Tier arrived with a purchase agreement from Warren Van Pelt, allowing the town to buy the railroad bed through his property and put in a trail. Thanks to that, Environmental Planner Dan Kwasnowski will be shifting a grant application to further work on the Dryden-Freeville trail, especially as the grant is looking for 'construction-ready' projects, which it looks like this one now is, at least for a longer segment. I'm not sure if they'll be able to go through George Junior Republic yet, but I think this purchase at least puts them on the doorstep.
The downside, at least for those of us on the west side, was that the town had planned to use that grant application for another rail trail through Varna from the East Hill Recreation Way to Route 13. Hopefully that'll still happen eventually.
Posted by simon at June 9, 2006 8:42 AM in trails