A state agency is drawing fire for its decision to permanently suspend snowplowing on Minnesota's busiest state trail.
Twelve miles of the Gateway State Trail will go unplowed as part of a statewide Department of Natural Resources plan to shift resources to "high-use seasons," said Erika Rivers, the manager of the agency's parks and trail unit. The Gateway, which stretches from St. Paul to northern Washington County, attracts hundreds of thousands of users a year — including in winter.
Melinda Coleman, Maplewood's city administrator, said she finds it appalling that taxpayers and city leaders didn't have a voice in the decision, and said that leaving the trail unplowed is unacceptable.
"This is a regional trail, used by hundreds of people in an urban setting," Coleman said. "I can't imagine making that kind of decision, and to not inform us, is really alarming to me. That's really not good governance."
A related DNR decision to ban high school ski teams from training at William O'Brien State Park, in Washington County, was under review Tuesday after coaches questioned why the agency had ended a 40-year arrangement.
Phil Leversedge, the deputy director of the parks and trails unit, said teams were notified they no longer could ski in the state park on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays to better accommodate other park users who wanted to ski. As many as 130 team skiers use the trails on weekends "and put a lot of pressure on the system," he said.
"We didn't have the resources to recondition the trails after their use on Saturday mornings," Leversedge said. "This isn't a new problem. It's a problem we recognized we needed to address," he said, as part of the DNR's new statewide plan that now excludes Gateway plowing.
DNR 'missed mark'
Leversedge said the DNR "missed the mark in connecting with the ski group" and wanted to reach a resolution in a late Tuesday meeting.