You have already met the
current Friends of the Pumpkinvine board. Before I begin my presentation, I’d
like to take this opportunity to recognize, Rhonda Yoder, who left the board this
year after serving 10 years, including nine as treasurer. Rhonda, would you
come up please?
The Friends of the
Pumpkinvine board wants to publically thank you for the 10 years that you gave to
the Friends and to this community, for the countless spreadsheets, financial
reports, IRS 990 forms, insurance payments, bike ride tabulations and all the
financial details that made our organization run smoothly. Your work helped to
make us a better organization and by extension, our community a more livable
and interesting place to live. In appreciation, we want to give you this
plaque, and thank you for your dedication and commitment.
I speak tonight as a
representative of the Friends of the Pumpkinvine board. We are the unelected,
citizen advocates who promoted the creation of this linear park and continue to
nurture its development through our website, newsletter, bike ride and we offer
occasional suggestions for improvements, like water fountain here or a kiosk
there.
However, the trail’s day-to-day
worker bees (who make sure the Pumpkinvine is humming along as it should) are
from the four agencies that manage the Pumpkinvine. We meet monthly as a
Pumpkinvine Advisory Committee to
discuss any issue related to the trail, like the type of signs, plowing or now
plowing the trail, and what electric-powered or gas-powered vehicles may use
the trail. Not all are here tonight, but I’d like introduce you to them
nonetheless.
Mark Salee and Tom Enright
represent Middlebury; Mike Sutter and Lynn Bontrager represent Shipshewana; Diane
Madison, Ronda DeCaire, and Nick Steele
represent Elkhart County Parks; Sheri Howland and Tanya Heyden represent
Goshen; Bob Carrico and I represent the Friends of the Pumpkinvine.
Bernie Cunningham, who became
superintendent of Elkhart County Parks after the group picture was taken last
fall, also attends these meetings occasionally.
This group is not an
intergovernmental agency in the legal sense, but it functions in many of the
ways such an agency would function, if government agencies functioned like they
are supposed to. When you have the opportunity, please thank these folks for
the work they do to manage and maintain the Pumpkinvine.
I’ve called my remarks this evening,
“Signs of the Times.” These are signs that indicate where the Pumpkinvine
Nature Trail is, how people regard it, and where I think it is headed.
I can illustrate that theme with
three brief stories. Several months ago I was poking around on the
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy website and saw a headline announcing that they had
ranked the Top 10 Trail in Indiana. Well, naturally I wanted to see where the
Pumpkinvine Nature Trail ranked, and yet I was apprehensive. I wanted it to be
in the top 10 and maybe even the top five, but given the well-known trails like
the Monon in Indianapolis and the Cardinal Greenway in Muncie, The Nickle Plate
in Rochester, and Prairie Dunelands in Portage
-- all wonderful greenways that I’ve seen, I was not hopeful the
Pumpkinvine would make the list.
All that went through my mind
as I paused before clicking on the link to the full story. Then I clicked the
link, and it said that Rails-to-Trail Conservancy ranked the Pumpkinvine Nature
Trail number one trail in Indiana, with this brief description.
“Featured
as the November Trail of the Month, the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail steals the show in Indiana. If you
want to experience genuine Midwestern Americana, this is it. Pastoral scenes of
Amish life and fields of gold line the path. A must-visit trail!”
Now, I know from
correspondence with the person who made the ranking that this ranking is no
highly scientific measurement, but still in some informal matrix of values from
a cross section of trail users the Pumpkinvine rank first in the state. I was
amazed and pleased at the same time.
A few weeks later, on March
21, I received an email from George C. from Lexington, Mich. I want to read the
whole email.
I
recently read the Rails-to-Trails article about your trail and would love to
visit and ride.
My
wife and I live in south east Michigan in an area known to locals as the
“thumb.” We enjoy traveling to, and staying at, places close to bike trails and
make it a point to do so a few times each season.
Doing
some snooping today, it looks like the Goshen airport is about 3 miles from the
Hampton Inn along Lincolnway Road . .
.and maybe about the same distance to the trail. If we flew into Goshen, would
Lincolnway be safe to ride into town?
I wrote back and suggested a
safer route than U.S. 33, but as I answered that email, my mind was spinning as
I tried to get my head around the fact that someone thought enough of our local
trail to fly a private plane to see it. It’s another sign of the trail’s
status. I’m guessing that not even our creative marketing friends, Denise
Hernandez and Jackie Hughes with the Elkhart County Convention and Visitor’s
Bureau, have thought about promoting the Pumpkinvine as a place to fly to.
Then about two weeks ago, I
was taking some pictures of the construction on the Middlebury DQ when a
40-something man came up to me and started asking me questions about my bike,
how many gears, what was its size, was it aluminum? Things like that. I
answered his questions and then, without my prompting, he said: “Isn’t this a
fantastic trail?” I wasn’t wearing any Pumpkinvine clothes that linked me to
the trail. He then launched into a glowing description of the Pumpkinvine and
what a delight it was to ride it with his family. I don’t remember his exact
words, but I do remember his evangelistic fervor, as if he needed to share his
discovery with me in case I wasn’t familiar with it. He went on to say that it
was the best trail of its kind near his family, and that they frequently make the
24-mile drive from Three Rivers, Mich., to ride the Pumpkinvine.
The only negative thing he
had to say was: “I don’t feel very safe on the section that’s on the road,” and
he pointed south toward CR 35. At that point, whipped out my Friends of the Pumpkinvine
business card and told him our non-profit Friends group was working right this
minute to close that gap, and that if he went to our website, he could help
make that happen.
What does these stories tell
us? What conditions do they suggest?
·
The Pumpkinvine
Nature Trail, our modest, not that long, not that fancy, and still unfinished
trail, has become a destination – something that people will drive to and some
will even fly to in order to ride. And we know that they buy food and lodging,
gas and biking, walking or running equipment and that helps our local economy. It’s
new money.
·
But, the
corollary to being a destination is that the more families the Pumpkinvine attracts,
the more urgent it becomes that we finish the trail by closing the gaps that
put families on the county roads.
What does that clientele look
like? It look like this group, which happens to be my wife and two
grandchildren. An adults who does not feel safe on the narrow county roads and children
under 10. For them the car-free trail is a joy because it is safe. , six and
four, and June is a grandmother towing the four year old. We were enjoying an
April ride between CR 35 and CR 27 two years ago. They fit that profile.
Before discussing this gap, I
want to say that we as a Friends board are very aware that there is a gap in
the Pumpkinvine from 850 W to downtown Shipshewana and many people would like
to see it closed, also. There’s no parking where the trail stops, and that’s a
problem, but there is a relatively safe alternative route people can use. With
limited time and resources, our priority has been the CR 33 to CR 35 gap.
For strategic reasons, we divide
this 1.5 mile as a gap between County Road 33 and County Road 35 into two
parts, a northern and a southern half, divided by County Road 20
The strategy in these two
sections is different because Friends of the Pumpkinvine own most of the old
railroad corridor on the north half, but we own almost nothing on the southern
half. We own the red dotted line. We don’t own the yellow. In our legal system,
you can’t build on someone else’s land. In both the north and south parts of
the gap, the railroad sold the corridor to adjacent landowners before our
Friends group formed. Currently trail users bypass this section on three
country roads – a distance of 1.7 miles.
We chose to concentrate on
the south half of the gap because we knew negotiations would take longer and
because earlier contacts with the relevant party in the northern half were not
productive.
At our annual dinner last
year, I reported that we’ve had very positive discussions with the landowners
in this section. In our March newsletter, we reported that we had agreed on a
tentative route for the trail through this section. Here it is. And here’s a
view looking south.
First it goes northeast 500
feet on the corridor. Then there’s a 750 foot bubble into the woods, through a
wetlands, back on the corridor for 700 feet, then north 900 feet along south
fork of Pine Creek (all that land belongs to one family), turn the corner, and
parallel CR 20 for about 1300 feet. Total length about .8 of a mile.
Let’s pause for a moment and
let these images sink in. Three Amish families, for whom separation from the
world is a prime theological and practical belief, have said that it’s fine
with them if 50,000 people a year ride through their property. By agreeing to
this route, they are saying that they are willing to sacrifice some of their
land and privacy for the good that extending the Pumpkinvine off road will have
for the their community and the larger community, an accommodation that they
would not have to make. They see value in the trail for everyone.
To put this attitude in
perspective, let me tell you about a recently conversation I had with Jim
Wellington, the person who championed Fidler Pond Park here in Goshen. He said
that the neighbors to that proposed park were violently opposed to its
creation. They were fearful of stranger and giving up their privacy. My own
community of Spring Brooke is balking at extending the Fidler Pond trail on the
edge of our property to College Ave. So, I applaud these three families for
allowing the Pumpkinvine to be extended through their land.
Where is the process at this
point? Here are the important points.
1.
We have built
trust with landowners through many meetings, walks and discussions. We would
not be applying grant to build the trail if we were worried about getting the
land.
2.
We have an
estimate of the cost for purchase and development: $848,000.
3.
The process of
purchase is somewhat complicated by the fact that the route goes off the old
railroad corridor, through wetlands and along a creek – that requires surveys
and legal descriptions.
4.
Building the
trail will be is more complicated because the route goes off the old railroad
corridor, through wetlands and along a creek – both of these conditions require
special permits to build.
5.
All of these
negotiations move on Amish time, that is to say, slowly.
Now
the good news: We have the potential to close the gap.
1.
Elkhart County
Community Foundation has given$300,000 matching grant to buy and build the
trail.
2.
Friends will pay
for engineering from funds we already have.
3.
Elkhart County
Parks has applied for $200,000 grant from Indiana Department of Natural
Resources for development and the park board has pledged $75,000 toward the
project.
4.
Friends of the
Pumpkinvine need to raise at least $135,000 to receive the match to build the
trail. If Elkhart County Parks does not receive the $200,000 grant, it will be
much more. In a normal year, we raise about $35,000 above expenses or $70,000
in two years. That leaves $65,000 additional to raise.
5.
Construction: 2016 or 2017.
If our 300 supporting
households were to increase their giving in the next two years, we would be
close to having enough to buy and build the trail. In other words, if you are a
member at the $30 level, consider going to $60. If you are at $60, consider
going to $100, and so on. If you aren’t a member, consider joining or having
your business be a corporate sponsor.
I’m nervous in giving you
these figures. In doing so I’m trying to thread the needle between making the
amount seem so large that it discourages people from giving and making it seem
so small that it will seem easy, which also discourages people from giving. Resist
those options: raising $135,000 won’t be easy, but it’s not impossible either.
In conclusion, let me remind
you of these signs of the times:
1.
The Pumpkinvine
Nature Trail has become a destination that attracts families, and we want them
to have a safe, enjoyable experience on the trail by closing this gap.
2.
Three families,
seeing the value of the trail for transportation to work and school and for
family outings, have generously offered to sell their land so that we can close
the southern part of the gap.
3.
The purchase and
construction will cost $834,000.
4.
The Friends of
the Pumpkinvine need to raise $135,000 to complete the match to the grant from
the Elkhart County Community Foundation.
5.
Construction: 2016 or 2017.
On your table is a membership
brochure. You can use it to join as a member or corporate sponsor or renew an
existing membership. Danny Graber will talk about how you can help with the
bike ride.
Our goal is to make the Pumpkinvine
Nature Trail that is recognized around the Midwest as an excellent linear park and
make it even better. I invite you to join us in meeting the financial challenge
to close the gap that will make that goal a reality.
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