Hey, local mountain bike riders.
The singletrack mountain bike trails in Sun Prairie's Sheehan Park need your help. We need you to make your voice heard at the City of Sun Prairie's Common Council meeting on February 19th at 7pm, in the Council Chambers upstairs at 300 East Main Street.
Being discussed is the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between CORP and the City of Sun Prairie. This MOU is the agreement that allows CORP volunteers to help with the design and maintenance of the singletrack mountain bike trails at Sheehan Park. The proposed MOU requires that CORP increase the size of our umbrella insurance policy, which will add a sizable cost to our small non-profit. None of the other government groups that CORP works with require this additional umbrella policy, including the City of Fitchburg, the City of Middleton, the City of Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Dane County Parks, and the Village of Cross Plains.
It is our understanding that other user groups at Sheehan Park have provided this requested umbrella policy. But these groups' use of the park is significantly different than what CORP proposes. Most of these groups use the park as is, and are often able to charge a fee to recoup their costs. In building and maintaining the trails, CORP is adding infrastructure and value to the park, and the trails will be open, for free, to any interested member of the public, including runners, snowshoers, hikers in addition to cyclists. This arrangement has been acceptable and successful at our eleven other trail locations; there is no reason it shouldn't be at Sheehan Park.
We had been led to believe that Parks Commission would recommend that the requirement of the umbrella policy be removed from our MOU, but late today were informed that they would not be doing so, and so the City Council will be voting on one that includes it. This is simply not tenable for CORP, and the result of their approving this MOU will be the abandonment of the trails. In addition to wasting countless hours of volunteer labor to get the trails built, it will mean that the Sun Prairie NICA and Red Fury youth teams will have to travel out of town to practice and that local residents will lose the opportunity to ride close to home. While other local municipalities are working with us, and often providing funding, to build neighborhood trails, it makes no sense for Sun Prairie to be setting unnecessary roadblocks.
We hope that the City Alders and Mayor will consider the differences in user groups, the difference in goals for each group's MOU, and what other government groups have already agreed to from an insurance perspective. We hope that they will agree to remove the MOU requirement for the added umbrella policy. If you agree, please plan on attending the meeting in support of the MOU change. If you live in Sun Prairie, please your alder know your feelings about this issue.
Thank you.
