Kansas City Star
Mar. 14, 2007
Give trail a happy ending
By MIKE HENDRICKS
Columnist

Awhile back, no one in Jeff City seemed to care whether the Katy Trail ever was finished.

Each year or so, I’d ring up the state park people and they’d tell me how they’d dearly love to extend the statewide hiking and biking trail to Kansas City. But, golly, it wasn’t a big priority and there were — gee, shucks — certain complications to be overcome.

In 2004, I pleaded for someone in power to take charge and — to quote the eminent philosopher Larry the Cable Guy — get ’er done.

Well, you know what they say. “Be careful what you ask for.”

Now the question is who loves the Katy more: Attorney General Jay Nixon or Gov. Matt Blunt?

Both say they want a Kansas City-Katy link to be part of any settlement with AmerenUE in the Taum Sauk reservoir disaster, which is a good thing.

The bad thing is that neither Blunt nor Nixon would spit on the other guy if he were on fire. The pair can’t agree on whether to go with a quick settlement (Blunt’s preference) or continued litigation (Nixon’s plan).

With Republican Blunt and Democrat Nixon expected to run against each other for governor in 2008, the political overtones worry trail supporters like Brent Hugh of the Missouri Bicycle Federation.

“I’d just like to see it get finished as soon as possible,” Hugh told me. “What I’m worried about is that in their maneuvering, they’ll mess up an opportunity.”

Quite an opportunity it is.

An opportunity brought of disaster, as it might not have come along had not a billion-plus gallons of water rushed through a breach in a hilltop reservoir owned by Ameren in December 2005.

The flood ravaged a state park below the dam, sending members of the park ranger’s family to the hospital. But one good thing came out of it. Missouri suddenly had leverage over Ameren, a St. Louis-based utility.

Besides the reservoir, Ameren owns a decommissioned rail line between Windsor, Mo., and Pleasant Hill in the Kansas City area. The line has long been seen as the corridor that would bring the Katy to our area.

Indeed, Blunt proclaimed a year ago that a Katy link should be part of any Taum Sauk settlement, and Nixon complained that the governor should keep his mouth shut and let the attorney general’s office continue its investigation.

It has only gotten worse. When last summer it was learned that some Ameren money found its way into Nixon’s campaign coffers, the state Department of Natural Resources started its own negotiations.

Nixon returned the dough, but in December the DNR announced it had worked out its own deal that included right of way for the Katy.

Nixon scotched the DNR plan by filing suit against Ameren the next day.

And so the sniping continues.

Blunt recently claimed that Nixon opposes expanding the Katy. To which Nixon countered that he is just trying to get the best deal for the state.

It’s frustrating to watch.

Mark Randall figures that, one way or another, the Katy Trail is coming our way. Specifically to Pleasant Hill, which Randall oversees as city administrator.

When and if the trail does get there, his little town is going to be ready for it, he says.

“We’re going ahead with our plans,” he told me.

This summer Pleasant Hill will build a trail in the city that would connect the Katy to the Metro Green trail system that spreads throughout this whole area.

“We think it would be a tremendous boost,” Randall says.

Thousands of tourists would begin and end their cross-state journeys in Pleasant Hill’s quaint downtown. Or they’d pass through on their way to or from Kansas City.

“It would really help to pump some life in the local economy,” Randall told me. “We’re still hopeful.”

So are a lot of us hopeful that Jeff City will get its act together and finish the Katy. And if somehow politics screws it up, well, I know a couple of pols who won’t be allowed to forget it.