Jasper County set to purchase land for bike trail

Efforts continue to connect the hike and bike trail from Des Moines to Lake Red Rock with the purchase of a rail bed corridor between Prairie City and Mitchellville.

The Jasper County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the $882,548 purchase, which is completely grant funded.

“We’ve done grant writing, we have everything set up for this, the transfer of property from just south of Prairie City at Highway F62 all of the way into Mitchellville,” Jasper County Conservation Director Keri Van Zante. “This will connect with the trail that we already have at F62 to Monroe.

This portion of the hike and bike trail project has been in the works for more than a year after Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation purchase the property on behalf of the county.

“We’ve been working with Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation,” Van Zante said. “INHF is a conservation holding company. They purchase the property until all of our grants are in place. They have been holding the purchase for us until money is in place.”

INHF initially purchased the property for $860,000. That price is $40,000 less than the appraised value of the property at $900,000 and more than $20,000 less than the total the county will pay.

The increase to $882,548 comes from more than $6,000 for an appraisal, $2,900 for recording fees, taxes and additional legal processes and $13,170 in interest.

“There is no matching money (from the county). All of it is covered by grants,” Van Zante said. “We are also working on another grant to start work to make into a trail instead of just a rail bed.”

Also approved by the board is the purchase of an automatic transfer switch for the county generator located in the Armory Annex Building. Van Maanen Electric was approved with the low bid of $5,495 for the work.

“As of right now we have a generator that sits out there and is hooked up to a manual transfer switch,” Building and Grounds Director Adam Sparks said. “At this point in time, when we lose power, depending on when it is, during the day we can run right out there. What we are trying to get to is something that will come on automatically for many reason including if we lose power during the night, it will kick on automatically.”

Sparks said without the generator, the county will lose about everything it needs to run including phones and email.

While the generator at the armory is important, Sparks said it is a small step in a process to keep the county up and running.

“The big piece is the courthouse itself,” Sparks said. “It needs to have a main transfer switch to have the armory and courthouse up and running which will keep the county up and operable at almost every location that the county owns that needs to be up and running.”

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com