Proposed trail closure an issue in Lathim, Dye legislative race

Signs for the small town of Tekoa boast about it being the end of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail and feature an image of the Whitman County community’s iconic railroad trestle.

But residents of the city of 843 people are worried that part of the statewide trail could be given to neighboring landowners, ending their claim to fame and a source of recreation.

They say state Reps. Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, and Mary Dye, R-Pomeroy, inserted a provision in the capital budget during the 2015 legislative session that would have closed a 135-mile stretch of the trail without a public hearing. The provision was later killed because of a wording error.

The proposed trail closure is becoming an issue in Dye’s special election to retain her seat against former Franklin County Sheriff Richard Lathim.

Dye distanced herself from involvement with the legislation to close undeveloped sections of the trail when speaking last week to the Herald’s editorial board.

Instead, she said her predecessor, former Rep. Susan Fagan, likely worked with Schmick on it. Dye was appointed to the position in May after Fagan resigned amid an ethics investigation.

Dye is willing to listen to the residents about their concerns, she said, but agreed with a letter Schmick wrote about several potential issues involving the trail.

“The main problem was that the state has had jurisdiction over some land and had chosen since 1981 not to do any maintenance or control over that land,” Dye said.

“So it was a public hazard, and it was being managed by landowners having to deal with all of the problems of public access with no accountability and no resources to monitor and take care of that,” she added.

Lathim, also a Republican, countered that lack of transparency in the process is what really has people upset.

“(The trail cut was approved) with no public input, no knowledge to the public that it was going to happen,” Lathim said. “The other side never even knew it was taking place ... I think the issue is, where’s the representation to the people?”

The move was a betrayal of trust for 9th District residents and other House members, Lathim said, adding that it gives a “black eye” to the Legislature, particularly the Republican side.

“Politicians don’t have the best reputation in the general public. Usually people like their representative, but, in general, they’re looked down at,” Lathim said.

“We’ve got a state auditor that’s under indictment. The reason we’re sitting here today is because our representative before us had to leave office because of unethical behavior,” Lathim said. “If anything, we should be going the extra step to be above board and be above reproach on any of these issues. However that happened, I think it was really poor judgment.”

Trail supporters, as well as landowners who complain about people using the state-owned land illegally, met with Schmick and Dye last week in Tekoa.

Schmick plans to create a six-member work group to look at the issue, he said.

The meeting was called after the Tekoa City Council approved a resolution asking the lawmakers to reconsider their plans to introduce a bill in 2016 that would close a long stretch of the trail west of Malden, located 22 miles east of Tekoa.

Some hope the bill to close the trail doesn’t come back.

“There’s so much opportunity at not great expense to make it much more user friendly,” said Ted Blaszak, a Tekoa city councilman and president of the Tekoa Trail and Trestle Association. “You can get on a bike in Seattle and never see a car go by and go all the way to Tekoa.”

A bill passed in 2013 already directed the parks department to move money from the John Wayne and other Eastern Washington trails toward reopening Lyons Ferry State Park at the confluence of the Snake and Palouse rivers.

Is the trail maintained?

The state Parks & Recreation Commission took over the eastern part of the John Wayne Trail from the Department of Natural Resources in 2006, said Nikki Fields, the parks commission’s trails coordinator.

It runs through Iron Horse State Park, which extends for 50 feet on both sides of the trail, from North Bend east to the Idaho border.

State parks has done some maintenance, but is limited by state budget cuts, Fields said. The Legislature has cut state park funding from $94.5 million in the 2007-09 biennium to $8.7 million from 2013-15, though some of that has been made up through Discover Pass and campsite revenue.

The trail features picnic tables and trailhead restrooms in the western part of the state. State parks is developing a master plan to add the same amenities on the east side, Fields said.

“Our plan is to reopen the bridges and improve the surfacing and, hopefully, acquire land where we have gaps in our ownership,” she said.

But Schmick told the Herald that state parks had its chance to improve the trail in Eastern Washington, but instead focused on the western part of the state.

“Frankly, they’ve made improvements from the Columbia River going west, all the way to the ocean,” Schmick said. “Even when they had lots of money, it wasn’t a priority for them.”

Schmick has told state park officials that he plans to seek legislation next year to close parts of two trails, Fields said. Along with closing the John Wayne Pioneer Trail between Vantage and Malden, the Columbia Plateau State Park Trail between the Martin Road Trailhead, south of Cheney, to the Kahlotus Trailhead would also be closed.

The Columbia Plateau Trail runs from the Tri-Cities northeast to Cheney, crossing the John Wayne Pioneer Trail east of Sprague.

Schmick said it is premature to discuss a possible bill for the upcoming session and now wants to focus on the recommendations of the Tekoa-area committee.

“We’ll come up with some ideas of how we can take care of both sides,” he said.

Landowners concerned

Dye argued that the land was taken from adjacent landowners, but Blaszak pointed out that before it was a trail, it was part of the Milwaukee Road rail line nearly a century ago.

It is questionable whether the John Wayne Trail land can be given to private landowners, since the area — much of which remains rail banked — is required to be made available again for a railroad should the need arise, Fields said.

Some landowners had the adjacent property in their family since even before the railroad, with some deeds saying that they would get the land back if the rail line were ever removed, Schmick said.

In a letter to Blaszak, Schmick defended placing the item about the John Wayne Pioneer Trail in the capital budget, instead of in a bill.

“Because so much of this year’s legislative focus was on education funding and the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, I didn’t think this issue would warrant the attention of 147 legislators and chose to find a solution through the legislative process,” he wrote.

Other complaints have focused on use of the trail, but state parks spokeswoman Virginia Painter said more people would use it if improvements could be made.

“It’s kind of a chicken or egg thing; we’ve got to provide a surface and a way for people to use it,” she said.

Jay Allert, whose property near Rosalia is along the trail, sees people on four-wheelers and hunters in jeeps along the trail. Parts of his electric fence and farm equipment once owned by his grandfather have been lost, he said.

“It’s a corridor for trespassing,” Allert said. “Because it is state land, it gives the people an excuse, and it doesn’t give me the authority to say they can’t stay there.”

Other landowners deal with noxious weeds growing over from the trail because the state fails to maintain them, Allert said. The trail near his property is covered by overgrown weeds and coarse rock.

A group called the John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders has put in more than 1,200 labor hours of work into the trail and spent $20,000 on it, Blaszak said. The group sponsors a two-week trip across the more than 200-mile-long trail each spring, with many people on horseback.

The people in the annual wagon train are fine, Allert said. But he can count on one hand the legitimate users the rest of the year.

“It’s gone on for 30 years,” he said. “It’s very generous to call it a state park. It’s an abandoned railroad right-of-way. It’s basically not used.”

The Tekoa Trail and Trestle Association was formed last year to hang up Christmas lights on Tekoa’s trestle, which it would like to make part of the John Wayne Trail, Blaszak said. It also sponsored a bike ride along the length of the trail earlier this year.

Blaszak agrees with Schmick that the trail has not received needed attention in Eastern Washington, but instead places blame on the Legislature.

It’s unfortunate that legislators in the district that includes the trail are fighting it, instead of working to make it a larger attraction, Blaszak said. The trail is one of only two in the country to cover the entire length of a state.

“The east end of the state has really been neglected,” he said.

Allert argues that the provision inserted by Schmick earlier this year would have allowed state parks to take back the land if it eventually got money to finish the trail, while allowing landowners to protect their property in the meantime.

“It’s the ultimate compromise,” Allert said. “State parks doesn’t have enough money to take care of the parks they have, let alone add new ones.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2015 at 10:33 PM with the headline "Proposed trail closure an issue in Lathim, Dye legislative race."