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Cruisin' Through The Local Slalom
Wawarsing Parks Are Ready To Be Conjoined

WAWARSING – Lippman Park is a gold mine.

"In the last eight years, this place has become a destination for thousands of mountain bikers," said Renegades Mountain Bike Club president Doug Nikkila during Wawarsing's April 20 town board meeting. Since the start of the group in 2009, he continued, fifteen miles of single and double track trails have been carefully carved into the natural landscape, securing Lippman Park's, and Wawarsing's, place as the number one destination for mountain biking in the state, and number 204, worldwide. The park itself consists of 175 acres of mostly wooded terrain and last year, Nikkila added, nearly 10,000-plus came out to use the trails.

"That's a huge amount of money that's coming into the town and it's only getting bigger," Nikkila summarized, noting that his ratings information had come from the mountain bike site Singletracks.com. "We're just a little town with a little park where we made something wonderful happen," he continued. "People come from all over the world to mountain bike here."

Going forward, Nikkila said the Renegades — which are also now laying track in the nearby town of Liberty, in Sullivan County — will continue to work with the Ellenville/Wawarsing Youth Commission through their participation in Winterfest and other festivities at Lippman Park, as well as with the Ellenville Public Library's annual bike ride around the village. The bike group is also working alongside the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to develop the state-owned Lundy Estate to add additional trails that can eventually reach into other state park lands.

Renegades member and joint village/town parks commission member Steven Rice added that the commission was also looking to the bike club for their assistance on developing other recreation plans, including the long-awaited extension of the rail trail through town.

"Our parks commission has really been focused on the rail trail and trying to reinvigorate that project and get it off the ground," noted commission chairman Hank Alicandri, adding that Wawarsing's highway superintendent and crew has also been "exceptionally useful," along with funds released by Ulster County through the Ellenville Million initiative. "We've realized the rail trail — and the town and village have about six parks, ranging from our big touchstone parks such as the Berme Rd. Park and Lippman Park, to a couple of smaller, lesser utilized parks — will enable us to connect all of these recreational lands. We see the rail trail as the spine... as a way to tie them all together."

Included in that concept, Alicandri added, would be the upgrading of the Smiley Carriage Road up onto the Shawangunk Ridge and its Minnewaska park lands, along with further improvements to the Berme Rd. Park.

"We see that as a real hub because that's where people can get into downtown Ellenville and visit the restaurants and theater," Alicandri concluded. "We're really focusing on that."

In other news, the town board held a public hearing on a New York City Department of Environmental Protection land acquisition of a 65 acre lot on Yeagerville Road. DEP's representative, Lydia Lewis, said it wouldn't be until the following spring before the sale was final after which the lands would be open to the public for recreational purposes including hunting and hiking.

In addition, the board authorized town attorney William Collier to return a contract deposit of $10,000 to the Ellenville Regional Hospital due to the Federal Aviation Authority regulations not allowing for construction that ERH had planned.

According to the hospital's executive assistant to CEO Steve Kelley, Barbara Garfinkel, the land in question was not involved in the hospital's planned rebuild, but an earlier plan for possible new senior housing.

Sources further noted that the issue did not come up at ERH's monthly board meeting on Tuesday night, April 25.



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