12/16/2011

Officials declare seasonal trail-maintenance position a success

A $13,000 investment in Public Works personnel has paid off in making the Town's celebrated greenbelt trail system even better.

Reports from the Public Works director and from members of the Town Council this month hailed the summer parks and trail-maintenance position a success.

"I get tired just reading through the details that this young man went through to do the work that he did out there on the greenbelt," Councilor Jim Walsh said during the reports and correspondence segment of the Dec. 12, 2011 Town Council meeting.

The worker, Brendan Sweeney, spent half of his 40-hour week maintaining trails on the greenbelt. Last month he submitted a report on the work, taken from field notes he maintained during the summer.

The 11-page report details efforts to clear trails extending from Stonegate, to the Spurwink Marsh to the Broad Cove Highlands and Two Lights. "Once (Brendan) learned the layout of trail network, he worked in a productive and orderly fashion, most of it in an unsupervised environment," Public Works Director Robert Malley said in a memo to the Conservation Commission. Other Public Works staff helped, Malley said, but it was Sweeney who performed most of the manual tasks. "I am very pleased to report that we accomplished our mission and made great strides on the maintenance of most major trails located throughout the community," he said.

Still, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, and that was provided Dec. 12 by Town Councilor David Sherman: "I actually happened to be on one of the greenbelt trails over the weekend and was very pleased at how easy it was to get through certain parts that, in the past, haven't been," Sherman said.

The seasonal position was created to provide more consistent maintenance of the trails, based on the recommendations of the Conservation Commission, Malley said, and to supplement volunteer maintenance efforts.

Walsh called the trail system one of the tremendous assets of Cape Elizabeth, "and it's being maintained in a way that I think all of us can be proud of."