Council approves grant application for trail system

Fremont city staff members are looking to expand the walking and bicycling trail system in town.

At their regular meeting Tuesday night, members of the Fremont City Council approved a pair of federal grant applications for the city’s trail system on the east side of town.

A grant application to the Transportation Enhancement Program would pay for about 80 percent -- nearly $360,000 -- of a new leg of the trail along the west side of Johnson Road north of Military Avenue, information from a staff report by parks and recreation department director John Schmitz stated.

When the application was presented to members of the city council’s development and improvement committee recently, committee members expressed concerns about building the trail before a proposed new campus for Archbishop Bergan Catholic Schools is built also on the west side of the road.

Also, a grant application for $150,000 is being submitted to the National Recreational Trails Program for a walking trail around Johnson Lake near Fremont Middle School and the city’s water park, Splash Station.

Schmitz said a concrete walking trail would circle the lake. The Johnson Lake walking trail is estimated to cost just more than $270,000. The amount being sought from the grant application is the maximum allowed under that program. In another matter, council members approved expansion projects to two downtown taverns.

The owner of the Corner Bar, 300 N. Main St., is requesting to be allowed to expand the bar into the old Classen building next door.

A layout presented to the Nebraska Liquor Commission showed the added bar space plus a beer garden area in the back of the old Classen building.

Remodeling of the building has been under way for weeks, complete with a new brick façade.

Plans for the expansion show that entrance into the bar would remain at the current location.

The owner of Doe’s Place, Shirley Sommers, is requesting to use the vacant lot beside the bar, 148 N. Main St., and an area behind the bar as a beer garden.

Part of the area behind the bar is used for parking.

Also, only Greater Fremont Development Council executive director Kevin Wilkins spoke at a public hearing for a pair of federal Brownfields grant applications held during the council meeting.

City staff members are applying for the grants to total up to $200,000 to be used to help clean up “known contamination at a specific site” but can also be used for other clean-up projects throughout the city.

City administrator Bob Hartwig said the grant applications target two specific areas of the city. The first is a crescent-shaped area south of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks running from just west of Hormel Foods Corp. along Factory Street to an area near Broad Street. The other is a former shooting range near Isaak Walton Park on the west side of the city. This is the second time the city has applied for a Brownfields grant to clean up the shooting range. Hartwig said city staff applied for the grant last year, but Environmental Protection Agency staff said the city needs a community assessment before the grant could be awarded. Information from the city stated that funds will target one area for potential contamination from petroleum products and the other for sites for contamination from other hazardous substances.