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Responses to Accusations made on flyer distributed in the community 09-18-2024

1. All property required for the project will be appraised at fair market value, per Federal regulations. Negotiations with landowners will seek a win-win solution.
2. Almost all of the trail is within city limits. A small stretch falls less than 100 feet outside of city limits.
3. Efforts were made to contact all property owners whose property will be “permanently impacted,” which means that some part of their property will be required for the project. Other property owners will have temporary impacts during construction. The next phase of the project includes reaching out to all property owners that will be permanently and temporarily impacted.
4. The trail location needs to be a choice that offers the best and safest route for the greatest number of expected users of the trail from the entire community.
5. Trail portions inside developed neighborhoods are planned at eight feet. Ten-foot trail portions are only planned along areas that are not close to houses.
6. The City’s agreement with NDOT places the responsibility for paying invoices for the project with NDOT. The state of Nebraska is not charging the city for financial management and project management services. NDOT has no incentive to fail to meet strict federal standards on accounting. They rely on federal grants for much of their funding.
7. Olsson was selected through a competitive process. Federal projects like Project Access York follow an RFQ process, which means Requests for Qualifications. The bids are basically packages of qualifications, not price point proposals. The choice of Olsson was not based on any price point. It was based on a competitive, qualification-based process. The budget target for the first two components of the project were met. The additional costs from Supplement 2 still leave engineering costs well below the industry standard of 10-15% of costs on a large project.
8. Over 120 letters were written to respond to those who submitted comments during the public input phase of the project. The letters were drafted by James and I and approved by Olsson and NDOT and sent directly to the individuals. The council was not involved in writing these letters, because that is the job of the staff involved in the project. The names and addresses were not provided to council before the letters were sent because people were concerned that Councilwoman Northrup would send the contact information to Protect Don’t Connect.
9. The Olsson project team includes an engineer with safety design expertise. The design focuses on maximizing safety on the routes between the key destinations to be linked by the project. The options for safety differ on different parts of the trail.
10. The study from the 1990’s that the city has referenced in discussions of trail safety was the most recent study that staff could find on crime statistics for rural community trails. The most comprehensive study of rural crime and trails available compares crime rates in rural communities to crime rates on rural trails. In the study year, there were 19 muggings per 100,000 population reported in rural communities and 0 muggings reported on rural trails. In that same year there were 203 assaults per 100,000 persons reported in rural communities and .01 assaults per 100,000 reported on rural trails.