Public comments on major plan for local trails

MARQUETTE — People love the Marquette Trails. There aren’t public polls or statistics available to prove this, but the bevy of people that showed up to today’s open house at Lakeview Arena make that clear.

All who attended filed in to get a glimpse of where the planning process stands for the Marquette Trails Master Plan; a plan with an end goal of making improvements to the trails.

The assistant director of community services in Marquette, Joe Swenson, explained, “People are coming in and there’s already been an opportunity for different stakeholders in the trails to meet with the consultant and to talk about different ideas and needs that they think should be addressed.”

Those needs varied widely.

Swenson went into detail, “(The needs and ideas include) future uses of the trails, future user groups, maybe different things such as maintenance and structures, and the interconnected nature of the trails systems within the city of Marquette.”

Tonight’s open house allowed the community to add further comment, as well.

Swenson added, “(It’s for the community) to get a feel for the direction the planning process is going, (as well as) to add comments. The consultant will take that back and use the information to make a rough draft plan.”

Once the consultant boils all the ideas down into said draft plan, that plan will then go the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. Eventually, adoption by the Marquette City Commission would be the ideal outcome.

The next meeting regarding the plan will take place in October.