TOWER— After two years of waiting and hoping, city officials here received some good news from the state Legislature last week. A funding plan approved by lawmakers includes an extension for the second phase of a harbor trail system that had been mothballed after the mishandling of the first phase of the project back in 2018-19.
The funding had originally been approved by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, or LCCMR, back in 2016, but LCCMR officials put a hold on the dollars after the city made major changes to the first phase of the project without seeking required approval.
The extension means the city can move forward with a $600,000 plan to build a paved connecting trail from the city’s harbor to the Mesabi Trail spur that goes to Hoodoo Point. The project will also include a road extension that will provide a launch point and trailhead kiosk on the north side of the Hwy. 169 bridge, near the site of the former boat launch. The launch point will serve as the start of a signed kayak route that will encompass the East and West Two rivers along with a portion of Lake Vermilion’s Pike Bay. The project is now set to be completed by June 23, 2023. That marks a nearly three-year extension from the project’s original completion date of June 30, 2020.
“Moving forward is great news,” said Nancy Larson, the city’s grant manager. The city council hired Larson to manage the city’s grants in the wake of mismanagement by the prior city administration.
Project put at risk
Larson initially volunteered her time in an effort to salvage funding for the first phase of the project, which had been put at risk after city officials significantly altered the project from what they had described to the LCCMR at the time.
The LCCMR approved a total of $1.279 million for what was described as the “Tower Historic Harbor Nature Trail/Kayak Route,” a proposal that was supposed to include construction of a walkway around the harbor along with a half-mile-long bituminous trail connecting the city’s harbor zone to Hoodoo Point.
The proposed kayak route was expected to have been included in the $679,000 initial phase, but it was overlooked along with the connecting trail. Instead, the city commissioned the construction of the harbor walkway, but added harbor lighting and a floating boardwalk along a portion of the harbor, neither of which had been included in the original application.
City officials made the changes without seeking a required project amendment from the LCCMR and the scrutiny it eventually brought the project led to a suspension of payments until Larson and other city officials could make the case that they would still be able to complete the primary objective of the overall project in the second phase.
By scaling back original plans for a boat launch and by shortening the connecting trail to the Hoodoo Point trail, city officials now hope to complete the project with the remaining $600,000 from the original grant.