12 JUL 2005: BLAST DNR Director Childers' email box in support of Complete Katy Trail

UPDATE 5 OCT 2005: The Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources is starting to move on this issue in Kansas City and in St. Louis. However, further messages in support are still needed.

If you haven't emailed Director Childers, please do so now. If you have emailed before, please feel free to do it again.

Missouri bicyclists, hikers, runners, walkers, and other trail users,

Doyle Childers, Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, is just ASKING for it. I say let's give it to him. It will take you all of two minutes:

--> One minute to send a short email message to "moparks@dnr.mo.gov" asking DNR Director Doyle Childers to complete the Katy Trail by connecting it all the way from St. Louis to Kansas City, including all major cities and towns along the trail.

--> Another minute to forward this message to all your friends who enjoy recreational trails.

Childers has challenged supporters of the "complete Katy Trail"--a trail system stretching from the St. Louis Arch to Kansas City's Liberty Memorial--to flood his email inbox.

"Bring it on," he said.

He's thrown down the gauntlet. Can we blow his inbox out of the water?

We've done it before. Let's do it again.

Message: I support a complete Katy Trail system stretching from the St. Louis arch to Liberty Memorial in Kansas City and connecting to all major communities along the way.
To: Doyle Childers, Director, Missouri DNR
Email: doyle.childers@dnr.mo.gov
Mail: Box 176, Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: 1-800-334-6946

Complete details in KCStar columnist Mike Hendricks' column below.

Since the request for email has appeared in a newspaper of large circulation, they will be expecting a LOT of email. To make a real impression, I think we will have to go beyond "a LOT"--w-a-y beyond.

Typing my own email now,

--Brent
Brent Hugh
President, Missouri Bicycle Federation
www.MoBikeFed.org

Let's mail without fail for the trail

MIKE HENDRICKS

I doubt it took a letter-writing campaign by each town along the route before Missouri's Katy Trail was extended from St. Charles to Clinton.

But those of us in KC are going to have to deluge the Missouri Department of Natural Resources with letters and e-mails before the trail will ever get this far.

That's what they're telling me in Jeff City.

It is simply not enough that Kansas City-area officials have been clamoring for years for a connection to the state's popular hiking and biking trail.

No, to convince DNR Director Doyle Childers that we really, really, want a Katy connection, he needs to hear from regular folks, and in writing.

"We love to hear from the public," said agency spokeswoman Connie Patterson. "Have the e-mails sent to us."

OK, now we know the ground rules. But before I hand out that address, a flashback.

Let me remind you that almost a year ago, I put out a challenge.

Someone in a position of authority, I said, needed to champion this cause. Someone like a governor.

Even without a Kansas City extension, the 225-mile Katy is the longest rails-to-trails project in the country.

It is one of Missouri's prime tourist draws. Someday it could be part of a bigger regional attraction. Plans call for the Katy becoming the eastern leg of a 700-mile Quad-State Trail, linking Missouri, Kansas Nebraska and Iowa.

But first some gaps need filling, especially the one that would join Kansas City to the Katy at Windsor, Mo.

Unfortunately, no one in the Blunt administration has made that a priority.

Not unless you count Childers.

Sure, he seems sympathetic, as he ought to be. His agency operates and maintains the trail.

In a recent op-ed piece in this newspaper, Childers wrote that "bringing the trail into Kansas City" was "a much wiser use of tax dollars" than making the railroad bridge at Boonville safe for hikers and people on bicycles.

However, that's about as far as this DNR director has gone. That, and asking for a show of "public support."

Well, fine. If that's what it's going to take to get things moving - and I doubt that's all there is to it - then we should bury the guy in correspondence.

Indeed, some folks are gearing up for a grassroots campaign.

The Mid-America Regional Council is working up a Katy Trail "fact sheet" to help mobilize an e-mail campaign for later in the summer.

Brent Hugh at the Missouri Bicycle Federation tells me that a separate petition drive has gathered several hundred signatures.

That's encouraging news.

But if you're like me, you don't want to be handed a petition to sign.

You want to act right away.

Therefore, when I half-jokingly asked Patterson if her boss would mind being buried in e-mails, she replied "bring it on."

So send e-mail to Childers at moparks@dnr.mo.gov . Or drop a note via snail mail to Box 176, Jefferson City, MO 65102. Of course, be polite. Also be sure to tell Childers that Missouri needs to begin immediate negotiations for the necessary right of way.

The problem has never been money so much as motivation.

Your letters and e-mails just might be that kick in the pants.

Hendricks' KCStar column online here.