http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2004/04/27/news/porter_county/e33e1bfa77a05c5d86256e8300137a24.txt

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Official presents proposal for trail

CHESTERTON: Hike/bike path would link Dogwood Park, Coffee Creek Center.

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Times Staff Writer


CHESTERTON -- The projected 2.5-mile Westchester-Liberty Trail will connect Dogwood Park to Coffee Creek Center while promoting recreation, safety and economic activity, Town Engineer Mark O'Dell told the Town Council on Monday.

O'Dell presented plans for the 8-foot-wide concrete path that will run along County Road 1100 North from Dogwood Park to the Tamarack subdivision and County Road 100 East. It will then cross under Ind. 49 at Railroad Avenue and connect to Coffee Creek.

O'Dell put a preliminary price tag of about $500,000 on the project, which will be constructed in three phases.

The town has applied for a $150,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources for the first phase of work, to be done in 2005. The grant would require a 20 percent town match of $30,000, which could possibly come from county economic development income tax funds, O'Dell said. As grants are made, environmental impact studies would need to follow, he said.

A different grant application to the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission for the first phase was still in review, economic development coordinator Dwayne Williams said.

Future improvements would connect the Dogwood trailhead to the Prairie Duneland Trail at Jackson Park, Williams said.

Charlotte Read, assistant director of the Save the Dunes Council, said she had concerns for wetlands the path would cross, but called it a good concept that would be useful in getting people to Coffee Creek.

"You've really got something wonderful going," Read said. "The connections sound really exciting."

In other business:
-- "A real bizarre idea," was the judgment of council member Frank Sessa on the proposal to institute a $1 entrance fee to the town's Wizard of Oz festival. The council gave a unanimous thumbs down to the idea. Council President Bob Crone said the council didn't think a fee was necessary or would work. Council member John Kosmatka instead suggested that whoever came up with the idea be set up at a dunk tank at the festival, with chances to dunk sold for $1 apiece. Representatives of Lakeshore Festival and Events and the Chesterton/Duneland Chamber of Commerce, which are jointly organizing this year's festival, were unable to attend Monday's meeting, Crone said.

-- The council appointed member Mike Bannon as its representative to the drug awareness steering committee that is forming in Chesterton, Porter and Burns Harbor.

Brian Williams can be reached at [email protected] or (219) 462-5151, ext. 348.