FAYETTEVILLE, WV (WOAY) – Wolf Creek Park in Fayetteville is a multi-use business park and biking enthusiasts have been working on bringing miles of trails to the park as well.
So far, this has just been a volunteer effort, but the county was able to allocate funding from coal severance to finish the trails back in November.
However, Tom Louisos, one of Fayette County’s commissioners, says he now wants to see that money go to a county-wide trail initiative.
“The trails have been something that’s been needed and wanted for a long time. There’s maps, so I decided to come up with a solution on funding the trails, or working on a solution to funding the trials,” Louisos said.
Louisos proposed the idea of using the $150,000 allocated to finish the Wolf Creek Park trails to be used to jump start other trail systems as well.
He believes there is enough money there to start other projects.
However, this proposal left people like Andrew Forron, who has been a longtime supporter of the Wolf Creek trails, in shock because the approval for the funding was a done deal months ago, specifically for Wolf Creek, so they can get that done and then start on other projects.
“It’s already been started, so we need to get it finished, so we can then move on to the next project,” Forron said. “You don’t want a lot of unfinished projects running around that aren’t useful, so we need to finish this one, so we can get started on other ones.”
Forron’s been working on this as a volunteer for the past five years with dozens of others and even says there are plans and maps drawn for other parts of the county but wants the focus to remain on completing Wolf Creek.
Louisos says he wants to see Wolf Creek get done but for less money.
“I want to see it all done. I want to see the county trail development is what I want to see,” he said.
Currently, a contractor has not been approved and a bid has not been accepted for the Wolf Creek trails but the volunteers who have been working on these trails have cut the job in half for free. However there are things that they cannot do on their own. But while they wait for the bids to get approved, they will do what they can.
“As long as there are trails to work on, we will do that nonstop, so it’ll never quit,” Forron said.
From here, work is expected to begin as soon as the winning bid is accepted, but Louisos wants to continue the conversation with those involved about potential for other trails throughout the county which is why he brought it back up during Friday’s commission meeting.
