Trail Concept Review Committee Responsibilities

A Trail Concept Review Committee, comprised of citizens and elected officials from Union and Wallowa counties is being formed to provide guidance to Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and Eastern Oregon University.

The Committee membership will include a variety of viewpoints and will ensure non-bias analysis through the evaluation of assessment reports and citizen input at key milestones during the public planning process.  The Committee will guide the development of trail design alternatives, mitigation measures, strategies for engaging community members, and will provide recommendations to the Wallowa Union Railroad Authority during consideration of the trail concept.

There will be interviews of individuals with differing opinions about building a trail and a series of public workshops in each of the counties to collect opinions about the trail in general and about trail design alternatives.  The information collected during the public workshops will be formulated into questions for a survey to test public opinions about trail alternatives.  The information collected in the physical assessment of the rail corridor by OPRD, research results developed by EOU, and information collected in the public workshops and survey results will be presented to the Wallowa Union Railroad Authority Board in January 2016.

Eastern Oregon University will maintain a project web page where information about the study will be available to the public.  The web page will provide the public an opportunity to comment and offer suggestions about the project.