County OKs addition to Herron Park

Flathead County’s popular Herron Park just got bigger.

The county commissioners on Monday approved the purchase of an additional 40 acres on the park’s northwest side. The county has committed $62,500 from its cash-in-lieu-of-parkland fund and the nonprofit Foys to Blacktail Trails group will chip in the remaining $281,000.

“It’s a pretty good deal,” Deputy County Attorney Peter Steele said as he presented the paperwork for signatures.

Steele noted the county Park Board is firmly behind the project and acknowledged the tireless efforts of Foys to Blacktail Trails.

The 40-acre addition is the first of eight planned purchase phases to acquire all of the 320 acres adjacent to Herron Park that’s owned by The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit organization that temporarily is holding the land until Foys to Blacktail can raise the money to buy it.

“What a great Christmas present for the Flathead Valley,” Foys to Blacktail board member Tom Esch said afterwards.

Eventually the group wants to secure a trail corridor extending to Blacktail Mountain, Esch said.

The group has completed the fundraising for the second phase of property purchase and already is working on a third phase.

Foys to Blacktail Trails’ goal is to raise $2.3 million by September 2012. Through donations and pledges from private donors and grants from several foundations, the group has raised more than $600,000 to date.

A major source of funding for the first 40-acre purchase came from a $70,000 grant through the Federal Highway Administration’s Recreational Trails Program. Another $40,000 state grant came from the sale of Canyon Ferry lots.

The Conservation Fund bought the 320-acre parcel in 2007 for $2 million, which pencils out to $6,250 per acre. The note was for annual interest of 5 percent for the first two years and changed to 2.5 percent in September 2009.

According to Flathead County Parks and Recreation Director Jed Fisher, there will be deed restrictions on the Herron Park addition similar to those at the county’s new Volunteer Park in Lakeside, which will address ownership in the event that the land is no longer used as a park.

Liz Makman, vice president of Foys to Blacktail Trails, noted that Herron Park is used by more than 100 people on a daily basis.

Herron Park is located just south of Kalispell on Foy’s Canyon Drive.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.