Funding for the Rock Island Trail faces an uphill battle in the Missouri Senate.
As the General Assembly finalizes the state budget during the next two weeks, lawmakers will decide the fate of a $5 million plan to kick start development of a 144-mile trail to run from Kansas City through Mid-Missouri.
The House last week narrowly adopted an amendment to appropriate $5 million to develop the trail in central parts of the state. The amendment was added by a vote of 72-71.
Whether the funding will survive in the Senate remains unclear.
Senate Appropriations Chair Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, could not be reached for comment on the $5-million proposal last week. The senator hasn’t started reviewing the House proposal, according to his legislative staff, but his position from last year has not changed.
Hough last year stripped the state budget of $69.3 million for development of the Rock Island Trail. He said at the time he was opposed because the state has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deferred maintenance at other state parks.
“I would like to see us invest in the structures and infrastructures we have in those facilities around the state before we go out and build a $100-plus million trail,” he said last year.
Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, said in February he’s unsure where the upper chamber stands on funding the Rock Island Trail because landowners around the trail weren’t happy with how the state started the process of developing.
“Our Senate Appropriations chairman kind of spearheaded the removal of the money and getting that taken care of last year,” Rowden told reporters. “Obviously, he’s more determined this year than he was last year so I would assume the department and the administration probably still have some work to do to get us comfortable with that level of investment in the Rock Island Trail.”
Gov. Mike Parson accepted the Rock Island corridor as part of the state parks system in 2021, kicking off development in some areas around the trail, such as Belle, Versailles and Eldon. The trail, once fully developed, will connect to the Katy Trail to create a 430-mile loop.
The combined walking and biking loop would be the first of its kind in the country and has been promoted as having the potential to drive tourism.
“It will be a bucket-list tourist destination that strengthens the fabrics of our rural communities and broadens the tourist appeal of all Missouri,” said Rep. Bruce Sassmann, a Bland Republican who offered the $5 million amendment last week.
Sassmann’s amendment is significantly pared back from the $69 million proposal pushed by the governor’s office and House last year. It also targets specific parts of the trail where local municipalities are interested in its development or have received grants in support. The funding would go toward development west of Eldon and east of Belle. None of the money will be spent developing the trail between Belle and Eldon.
“This amendment is respectful to those portions along the trail that are excited and enthusiastic about trail development, and it also respectful to those folks that are not ready for the trail to be developed,” he said from the House floor.
Sassmann said he knows the communities of Cole Camp, Stover, Versailles, Barnett, Eldon, Belle, Owensville, Rosebud, Gerald and Beaufort, among others, are engaged and enthusiastic about building the trail. In Mid-Missouri, the trail is also scheduled to run through the communities of Eugene, Meta, Argyle, Freeburg and Canaan.
Eldon, Versailles, Belle and Owensville have received grant funding and several more local governments are applying for grants, Sassmann said.
The state has also received a grant, worth about $2.7 million, to advance the trail, said Mike Sutherland, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which oversees state parks.
When considering Sassmann’s amendment, Republican members of the House noted unfunded repair needs at other state parks, such as $50 million in repairs needed along the Katy Trail, and reiterated concerns from landowners around the trail, adding that the Missouri Farm Bureau was against it as a property rights issue.
In February, an eight-year-long lawsuit on the behalf of some landowners along the Rock Island corridor was settled. The Federal Appeals Court in Washington ruled the landowners were entitled to compensation, which would be paid by the federal government.
Sassmann noted the federal government is actively paying landowners and that the trail would align with several of Farm Bureau priorities, including promoting the state’s agritourism industry and outdoor activities.
Rep. Mike McGirl, R-Potosi, spoke in favor of Sassmann’s amendment because he said it carved out areas where there might still be ongoing discussions about landowner compensation. The trail would run through his district.
Rep. Tim Taylor, R-Bunceton, also spoke in favor of the amendment, noting his vote was in opposition to the Farm Bureau and Missouri Cattlemen’s Association. Taylor owns a business along the Katy Trail and said it’s been beneficial for economic growth. He sees the Rock Island Trail as another vehicle for rural economic development.
“If anybody in here thinks that there aren’t always going to be unfunded needs for every park — you have unfunded needs for your own homes for crying out loud — we will never, ever get to the end of unfunded needs for our state parks,” Taylor said, “so to use that as an example of why we shouldn’t spend $5 million to keep up with what is already there seems not very fair.”
Rep. Peter Merideth, a St. Louis Democrat and the ranking minority member of the House Budget Committee, backed the amendment as well, describing it as a “healthy way to step back from the bigger proposal that was last year.”
Source: News Tribune
