Council agrees to Oxbow grant application
May 14—OTTUMWA — The Ottumwa City Council unanimously gave the city and Mayor Tom Lazio permission to proceed with a grant application for the Oxbow Lagoon Link Trail, which would essentially connect Church Street with Greater Ottumwa Park.
The council voted 3-0 during Friday's special meeting at City Hall, with members Marc Roe and Holly Berg absent, to begin the process of applying for the COVID-19 Relief Recreational Trails Program grant for $637,667 that would go toward building the trail.
The total cost of the project is just over $850,000, with funding also from the county, Wapello County Trails Council, the city and an in-kind donation from the city engineering department to design and manage both the contract and construction.
Phillip Burgmeier, who works in the engineering department, showed a drone presentation of what the trail would look like on the south side of Ottumwa. The trail would start by connecting with an existing trail on Church Street, wrap around along Richmond Avenue before ending along Wapello Street/Ferry Street in the park and connecting with other levee trails. The trail would link up with the Milner Street trail along Richmond and create bicycle-accessible paths to the park and other trails.
Eventually, the trail could link up with a trail to Liberty Elementary School.
"It is our intent to keep it as close to the oxbow as we can," Burgmeier told the council.
There were a couple of logistical hurdles with the proposed path of the trail, which will try to mirror the trail on the other side of the lagoon. Some businesses along both Church Street and Richmond Avenue have parking in the rear, and there are trees along the lagoon. Trees could be cleared out, but parking would force the trails closer to the streets.
One of the long-term concerns Burgmeier mentioned was the properties along Church Street, especially if they see values decrease as a result of the trail.
"I think the long-term plan would be the sections that jump out on to Church Street, that we would have time to work out something with the property owners," he said. "We don't want to ruin the value of their property by putting the trail between them and the oxbow, and maybe we could out into the lagoon some.
"But that's a longer-term fix. For right now we'll provide a trail all the way around the south side of that lagoon past Church Street and Richmond, and provide connection for the south side to the park."
Council member Skip Stevens inquired about getting easements for some of the Church Street properties, but Burgmeier again said it came back to properties themselves, some of which have parking in the rear.
"To get enough right-of-way to accommodate that trail would take away enough of a guy's property on the back side to render it pretty much useless," he said. "So we would end up having to take the whole piece of property away from them, not just some of it. There isn't room for parking and a trail."
The council will meet in regular session Tuesday at City Hall.
— Chad Drury can be reached at cdrury@ottumwacourier.com, and on Twitter @ChadDrury
