Riverside Park bike trail project moves forward

WORLAND — Worland City Council members during their regular meeting on Tuesday, August 16 moved forward with the preliminary phases of a bike trail project at Riverside Rotary Park.

Specifically, council members voted unanimously to apply for a grant on behalf of Ten Sleep Nowood Trailbreakers (TNT).

TNT President CJ Grimes said the project would include extending a gravel trail at the park. In addition, the project would also involve installing some terrain features, which could be fun for all ages.

Grimes said other communities throughout Wyoming have installed similar facilities.

Under the grant application, the City of Worland is the primary applicant for the $250,000 grant. TNT is responsible for fundraising a 10% match.

“If the city of Worland were able to be the (grant) applicant, that would buy us more in terms of the risk assessment process and we could focus on the fundraising side of things,” Grimes said.

Worland Superintendent of Public Works Nick Kruger said he’s met with Grimes and City Clerk-Treasurer Tracy Glanz on the city working on the grant.

“Originally we were intending upon having TNT be the applicant, but after we got the paperwork from Wyoming Parks, there’s a lot of sections that specifically call out like, ‘What is your employee management practices? What is your financial history? How many grants have you applied for? How have you worked with grants?,’ Kruger said.

“When we started looking at the scope of that, it was very clear and evident to myself to Tracy and myself that the city would be the one that needs to apply for this because of that history,” Kruger added. “That’s where it kind of morphed into the city becoming the primary manager for the grant itself. We’ll do all the paperwork and manage all of that. TNT has worked extremely hard so far and gotten great results in the community for the match side of it.”

The grant is offered through Wyoming State Parks’ Outdoor Recreation Program.

An initial application for the grant is due by Aug. 30. Should TNT advance, the final application would be due on Oct. 31.

In order to keep maintenance to a minimum, crews would install an asphalt track. The city owns equipment to repair asphalt with the inevitable wear and tear.

Grimes described the proposal as an “all around” recreation feature that may also include a 9-hole disc golf course.

TNT hired a consultant, Kay-Linn, to help advise on the proposed project. Grimes said the company helped design an immensely popular trail system in the Cody area.

“They’re the same people who designed the Beck Lake Park, Beck Lake Trails, up in Cody, which is really popular and gets tons of use. We use it every chance we get,” Grimes said. “It would be something similar, maybe a little bit smaller scale than that, but thoroughly enjoyable and useable.

“There’s more and more of these things kind of going up.”

Grimes added that TNT is working with organizations around the state to bring similar projects to local communities.

Slow down

Worland Police Chief Gabe Elliott told council members with school starting back on Thursday, school zones will be back in effect. He said some lights have been malfunctioning, but they can be manually operated if need be when school gets back in swing.

New trucks

Council members accepted bids for two one-ton pickup trucks. Fremont Motors in Riverton submitted a bid for $95,456 while Ken Garff Automotive from Cheyenne submitted a bid for $102,910.

The council voted to accept the bid from Fremont.

Kruger said the trucks will be crew cabs and the city will install flatbeds on them.