Three of the five members of the Marshall County Park attended the monthly meeting Thursday evening in the County Building.
While members had hoped to purchase the West School property, Deb VanDeMark, board secretary said the realtor contacted them and said the seller had accepted another offer on the property.
Although the West School property is off the table at this time the County Park Board has two other projects they would like to get started on. One is the creating of a mountain bike trail and possibly a walking trail at Mill Pond and acquiring the historic log cabin that sits on property owned by Cindy Rhoads on State Road 17.
The Mountain Bike Trail was discussed at last month’s meeting by Brandon Calhoun. Yesterday local attorney and mountain biker Jeff Houin attended the meeting along with Calhoun. They are interested in pursuing a trail project at Mill Pond although Houin had concerns of securing grants and liability for the project if the county park board doesn’t have a written agreement or memorandum of understanding with the commissioners to create such a project.
The County Park Board is willing to move forward with the mountain bike trail and motioned to form a committee with member Adam Thada to head up the committee. The board decided to meet with the commissioners at their meeting on Monday, September 21st and discuss the proposed project.
The board also discussed naming the Mill Pond Park. It was noted that the property was donated by the estate of a local family and that may be an option to honor them.
The second project discussed was the 200 year old log cabin on the Cindy Rhoads property. She told the park board she is willing to give the cabin to the park board as long as they will keep it in Marshall County. Rhoads said she has discussed the possibility over the last 5 years and would really like to get the log cabin removed before it sustains any more damage from the leaking roof.
The County Park Board discussed this project last month too. It was noted that an Amish company said it would cost about $30,000 to take-down the log cabin and rebuild it. The initial plan was to move the cabin to the West School property but since that isn’t an option at this time, the board discussed having the building taken down and stored at the County Highway Department until a proper location could be determined. One option mentioned during the meeting last night was the Memorial Forest.
The County Park Board has no funds so they will need to look for a funding source to have the building taken down.
