Trail to the Train project gets new heads

AMENIA — On the same evening that he announced that he will not be running for re-election at year’s end, town Supervisor Wayne Euvrard named Councilwomen Victoria Perotti and Darlene Riemer as the new co-chairs of the Amenia Town Board’s committee for the Trail to the Train project.Euvrard said he selected Perotti and Riemer because both of them are in the middle of their term on the Town Board, so no matter what happens in this year’s elections, both of them will still be on the Amenia Town Board next year.Euvrard will still be required to sign off on all paperwork while he remains on the board, but Perotti and Riemer will represent the project during meetings.The project’s current statusPerotti said that contract negotiations with WSP Sells are ongoing; WSP Sells was chosen by the Town Board to undertake the project that will connect the Rail Trail from its end point at the Wassaic MetroNorth train station to the center of the hamlet of Wassaic. The purpose of the negotiations, she said, is to get a better explanation of elements of the contract that had higher-than-expected estimates.The contract negotiations are between the Amenia Town Board and WSP Sells. The Trail to the Train Committee is “not privy to the contract negotiations,” said Riemer.Perotti said that the Amenia Town Board does not want to change contractors, as the Trail to the Train Committee has previously requested. Also, the board is prevented from doing so by the rules attached to the $600,000 federal grant received for the project.The federal grant is an “80-20,” meaning the government will give 80 percent of the grant amount and the additional 20 percent — or $120,000 — will be funded by the town.Perotti and Riemer attended a meeting with the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Trail to the Train Committee on Friday, July 22, to discuss the federal requirements and regulations attached to the grant and to ensure that everyone was “on the same page,” said Perotti.During the meeting, the Department of Transportation, which acting as the local administrator of the federal grant, gave the attendees an official flow chart that maps the appropriate process and course of action that must be followed throughout the project.If the chart’s steps are not followed precisely and in the correct order, the project may be jeopardized and could cause the loss of the grant, said Riemer.Riemer also noted that “the meeting was very enlightening” and helped all parties understand the process that the project will follow and what the chain of communication will look like to make sure everyone involved is kept fully informed.“Everyone has the same goal [now]. That’s what we came away with,” said Riemer.Riemer said that according to the chart, the Trail to the Train project is roughly 20 percent through the overall process. She also said the DOT thinks the amount of time spent on the project so far is on par with other similar projects.Perotti said that there has been negative feedback regarding the speed and progress of the project, but she said that it is very important to make sure that all of the federal grant rules are being followed — which is her “main concern” — and that is something that takes a lot of time.The Trail to the Train project has also been awarded two other substantial grants. One is a $10,000 Greenway grant. The other is for $100,000, and will be presented in Wassaic on Thursday, July 28, by state Sen. Greg Ball. Town Board member Vicki Doyle applied for that grant to help with the construction costs of the project. Several people involved with the project are looking into whether the $100,000 grant from the senator can be put toward the $120,000 that the town has to pay as part of the federal grant.The Trail to the Train project was originally estimated to cost $600,000, but Perotti said that the final cost will be decided by the design, the route of the trail and other expenses.She and Riemer both noted that the Town Board is looking into other grants to help minimize the amount of money the town will need to borrow in order to pay for the project.“We’re always on the lookout for more money,” said Riemer.Euvrard said that only $15,000 was put toward the Trail to the Train project in this year’s budget because that was all the town could “scrape together.”“In tough economic times, [the Trail to the Train project] is not a priority for me, but we’ll see what happens,” he said.Perotti said that the project remains in the design stage, but she plans on continuing to work diligently to keep the project moving forward.