By Ann McCreary
After the Lloyd family withdrew its offer to donate property for Twisp’s community trail, the town and the property owners are drafting an agreement for in-kind services to offset the loss of the property.
The property donation, which the Lloyd family agreed to last year and then rescinded this year, would have allowed the recreational trail to be built along family-owned property on the east side of Methow River north of Highway 20.
The value of the donated property was included as a portion of the town’s matching funds in a grant application to the state Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO), which granted $199,504 to Twisp to acquire property and construct the trail.
The property to be donated was appraised at $142,200, according to the Twisp clerk’s office.
A draft of the agreement between the town and Lloyd Holdco LLC was discussed at the Dec. 8 town council meeting.
The agreement states that Lloyd Holdco will make “an in-kind contribution to Twisp for the purposes of construction and maintenance of the trail in exchange for termination of the trail agreement.”
“Such in-kind contribution can be in the form of materials, labor, equipment, construction or maintenance for the trail,” the agreement stated.
The Lloyd family operates Lloyd Logging Inc., an excavating and construction business based in Twisp.
The agreement said Lloyd Holdco will have discretion in determining the contractor, amount, and allocation of in-kind materials, and will coordinate with Twisp to determine the time frame and type of in-kind contribution.
Amount to be set
The draft agreement left the amount of the in-kind donation blank. At last week’s council meeting Twisp Mayor Soo Ing-Moody asked Bob Lloyd, a town council member, if the family had determined an amount. Lloyd said the amount had not been decided.
Ing-Moody said the town is facing a deadline related to the town’s required matching funds for the state grant, and requested that the amount be decided by the next council meeting.
“We need to get it nailed down within the next month or so,” Ing-Moody said in an interview after the meeting.
“Like any donation, it’s up to the donor to decide how much they want to donate. We would then consider what we need to do if we do need additional matching funds,” the mayor said.
Loss of the Lloyd donation, and lower-than-anticipated appraisals on other properties donated for the trail, have resulted in a shortfall of about $30,000 – $40,000 in the town’s required match, which also includes materials and staff time.
The planned recreation trail would begin at the Twisp Park and run south along the Methow River on donated easements and rights-of-way. It would continue on town sidewalks and streets to the bridge over the Methow River.
Plans had called for it to cross the bridge and head north for about one-third of a mile along the river on the Lloyd property, but the trail will now end at the bridge.
Lloyd told council members at a previous meeting that the family had decided to withdraw its offer to allow the trail on the riverfront property because of “security and privacy” concerns.
The property is adjacent to vacant land owned by the Lloyd family, which proposed to develop an industrial park in the early 1990s. The industrial park was never developed.
The trail would have followed the roadbed of the former Wagner Street, which the town vacated years ago at the request of the Lloyd family.
