By Lawrence Powell

The Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

A process that could see a solution to the trail impasse at Paradise is in the works and hopes are high that the controversial issue will be laid to rest by the end of August.

The Department of Natural Resources’ Bruce Carter told members of the Annapolis County Trails Society Thursday that DNR director Patricia MacNeil is proposing a facilitated workshop that brings all sides to the table for the first time.

While the exact makeup of the 10-member workshop has not been finalized, Carter said one scenario could include three members in favour of multi-use, three opposed, and four adjacent landowners. He said all members would be from Paradise.

“I think this is the proper way to go,” said James Frank who was re-elected as ACTS president at the group’s annual general meeting earlier in the evening. “It sets the people most affected at the table. We will finally come to a resolution -- hopefully without tearing apart a community, families, and friendships.”

MacNeil said last week the facilitated process is still in the conceptual stage but she hopes everything will be in place and the process concluded in August – with opportunity for follow-up in the fall. She said she has heard a lot about the impasse since barricades went up in January but she does not believe that barricades can be the final solution.

She said DNR is not alone in developing and facilitating the process. Health Promotion and Protection is also a partner. She said it has to be an open and transparent process and creating the criteria for how people get to the table is important.

Carter shared the latest development with ACTS during a directors meeting following the AGM. While ACTS members had many questions about the facilitated workshop process Carter was quick to point out that this would be the first time all factions of the issue would actually sit down and talk.

While ACTS won’t be involved in the process, members did express their wish that members of the workshop be adjacent landowners and that those involved also have access, as needed, to experts and resources throughout the process.

ACTS had planned on fielding a list of names as possible members of the workshop process but later decided against such a move. Frank said he did not want to influence the process in any way.

The Paradise section of the abandoned railway was blocked by concrete barricades put in place by DNR in January. That followed two years in which a solution or alternate route should have been found.

“Many avenues have been sought to deal with this situation without result,” said Frank in an interview. “But hopefully by bringing only the stakeholders -- adjacent landowners -- together with proper facilitation, a resolution can be comprised to meet the needs of both adjacent landowners and trail proponents giving us a multiuse trail available for all users from one end of the county to the other.”

But MacNeil could not say who would be at the table, but suggested that the makeup be weighted in a concentric-circles of communities model.

Frank said the concrete barricades are not what have kept motorized vehicles off the abandoned railway, rather the signs did. He said almost all vehicle owners are responsible and abide by laws, rules, and regulations that govern developed trails.

Carter said there are many options for the Paradise section of the trail and it will be up to the workshop to bring those options to light, discuss them, and forge a solution. He said he hopes that a successful process in Paradise will become a template for resolving similar trail issues elsewhere in the province. MacNeil agreed, saying that the Paradise experience will be extremely valuable.

Frank said that ACTS’ original mandate was to build a trail from one end of the county to the other without inflicting any injustice upon any of the adjacent landowners, giving the county something to be proud of.

“Who knows best but the people in Paradise,” MacNeil said. “We have the legislation and the tools, but at the end of the day, they have to live there and work there and travel through there.”