**UPDATE The date for this agenda item has been moved to March 18th at 10am**

Dear Trail Lovers,

The County Commissioners will be discussing next steps for the Yamhelas Westsider project again (EDIT) Thursday, March 18th at 10:00 a.m.

Many of you are probably wondering where we are at with the project to save the trail given County Commissioners vote on February 4th to withdraw from the land use process. Indeed this puts the future of the trail, and the county's fiscal liability in a very precarious position. 

ODOT has stated the county will have to pay back the almost $1-million spent so far on the currently unfinished bridge project if it is not used for a trail. Additionally the Master Plan was funded by a grant from ODOT, with matching funds paid by Friends of the Yamhelas Westsider Trail. And Alta Planning and Design project managers were in the midst of reaching out to adjacent landowners to discuss their issues when work stopped.

The Master Plan provides an opportunity for in-depth examination of the concerns of adjacent landowners and applying the expert knowledge of experienced trail planners to solutions.  Stopping this process ignores the potential for solutions and throws away years of work on a widely popular public transportation and recreation project. 

We need to let our Commissioners know that just because they voted to halt the Land Use Process, does not mean that we are ok with them putting the county into financial jeopardy, funneling investment out of Yamhill County, gutting valuable infrastructure projects, and wholesaling county assets to special interests in order to bail themselves out of a mess they created. Yamhill County citizens deserve a county that works for them. 

Tune into the meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfoZQSvH1V2JrpU3nFCgIA
If you’d like to provide comment to commissioners ahead of the meeting, send emails to bocinfo@co.yamhill.or.us