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County joins study for bike trail system through southwest Minnesota

By
Mavis Fodness

Rock County Commissioners agreed to contribute $3,000 to develop plans for a regional trail system through the Southwest Regional Development Commission (SRDC).
SRDC representatives Jessica Welu and Rosemary Bruce-White asked commissioners for their support at the Dec. 14 meeting.
“What Covid has taught us, if anything, is that our trails and our parks were immensely important,” Welu said.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has a $209,000 trails development grant available if the SRDC provides a 20-percent funding match.
Bruce-White said the SRDC has set aside $14,000 for the match and is asking the nine southwest Minnesota counties to contribute $3,000 each.
The Rock County Board approved the request unanimously.
“A lot of our communities have great ideas for projects and construction plans,” Bruce-White said.
“When they heard money was available — but without a plan and without all those things in motion — we couldn’t get anything started for them and that (a regional trail plan) was something the EDA wanted to see on the application.”
SRDC officials pointed to recent successes in Rock County and the city of Luverne to fund and build public walking and biking trails.
“We want to take what is happening locally and regionalize it,” Welu said.
The proposed study and regional plan development are expected to pull together existing recreational trail plans and add suggested improvements from local trail users.
The study and plan development are expected to take 18 months to complete and will spearhead future funding applications to connect the counties of Rock, Nobles, Jackson, Cottonwood, Murray, Pipestone, Lincoln, Lyon and Redwood.

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