By Ann McCreary
Twisp town officials are still waiting for a response from Lloyd Holdco LLC regarding an in-kind donation to compensate the town for the Lloyd family’s decision to withdraw a donation of riverfront property for a community trail.
In response to a question from Mayor Soo Ing-Moody at the Jan. 12 council meeting, council member Bob Lloyd — representing the family — said there had not been time for the family to review the proposed agreement for the in-kind contribution.
“There is some wording that concerned us but we are committed to some kind of in-kind donation,” Lloyd told Ing-Moody. “It would be around $18,000 is the number we’ve talked about.”
According to the agreement, the Lloyd family would provide Twisp a donation of materials, labor, construction or maintenance for the trail. Plans agreed to last year by the family called for a portion of the trail to built on family-owned property on the east side of the Methow River north of Highway 20.
The value of the donated property was included as part of match the town is required to provide for a $199,504 grant from the state Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) to acquire property and construct the trail.
Ing-Moody said Tuesday (Jan. 19) that she has not yet heard whether the Lloyd family will sign off on the agreement for an in-kind donation to offset the loss of the donation. The agreement was first discussed at a council meeting on Dec. 8.
“It comes down to them accepting the agreement as proposed by our attorney,” she said.
Ing-Moody said the town is eager to finalize the agreement to ensure Twisp will not lose the state grant for the trail development.
“We have to make a response [to RCO] and finalize details sooner rather than later. We’re going to do everything we can to keep it [the grant]. But it’s not in the bank,” she said.
Loss of the Lloyd property donation, and lower-than-expected appraisals on other properties donated for the trail, means the town has a deficit of about $35,000 in the matching funding it must provide, Ing-Moody said. The in-kind donation would make up some of the shortfall.
“We are looking for funding. We might cut costs if needed,” Ing-Moody said.
The recreation trail as now planned would begin at the Twisp Park and head south along the Methow River on donated easements and on town sidewalks and streets to the Methow River Bridge, where it will end.
Plans had called for it to cross the bridge and head north along the river on the donated Lloyd property, following the roadbed of the former Wagner Street, which was vacated by the town in the 1990s at the request of the Lloyd family.
The property, appraised at $142,200 according to town officials, adjoins vacant land owned by the Lloyds, who proposed an industrial park in the early 1990s that was never developed.
The family operates Lloyd Logging Inc., an excavating and construction business based in Twisp.
