Monona Council takes steps toward extended trail

MONONA – The City of Monona could soon get a new walking and biking trail … if the money is there for it.
Last Monday night the Monona City Council approved a motion to apply for a $75,000 REAP grant that would be used to extend the city’s recreational trail from Gateway Park to the Butterfly Garden and Trail. Lora Friest, director of Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation and Development prepared a 30-page proposal for the grant that would fund a portion of the approximately 2,800 linear foot trail.
City Administrator Dan Canton said the city has applied for REAP grants on other occasions with mixed success. The city received $40,000 in 2000 to establish the Butterfly Garden and received another $45,000 in 2010 to extend the trail at the Butterfly Garden. Grant requests for City Park restrooms have been turned down. Canton said Friest believes this could be a project the selection committee likes.
“Laura really thinks this project is really going to be attractive to them,” Canton said.
“In the narrative, she pretty much hit a home run on every one of the 12 items (listed on the grant),” he said. “She has a lot of experience knowing how to score points because these are highly competitive grants. The last three years I think there’s been 36 applications and Monona’s been slowly climbing up the ladder getting close.”
The application touts the projects proximity to facilities and improvements on other land as well as its relationship to other facilities and natural resources. She also writes about Monona’s proximity to several other state and federal areas including the Yellow River Forest and Water Trail, the Effigy Mounds National Monument and the Mississippi River.
Canton said it appears the projects most likely to get grant funding are trail extensions and land annexation. 
 
“What makes this project attractive is that Monona is the Garden City of Iowa and along the whole thing you can see the native plants along the whole thing,” he said.
 
Read the full article in the Wednesday, August 16, 2017 edition of The Outlook. 

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