Plan solidifies
On Wednesday, the Rumford committee selected a consultant to help with the permitting.
By Eileen M. Adams
Staff Writer

RUMFORD – The park won’t be the same as it was decades ago, but perhaps it will be even better.

That’s what Linda Macgregor, chairwoman of the River Park Planning Committee, told members and visitors at a meeting Wednesday afternoon just before they started marking the trail that will make up part of the park.

A small group of people have been working for nearly two years with limited funding to get the park and trail idea off the ground. With that money, they’ve hired the consulting firm of Dewan Associates to block out Phase I of the park. On Wednesday, they gave the go-ahead to another consultant, Tom DuBois of Main-Land Development of Livermore Falls, to start preparing paperwork that’s necessary for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection permitting process.

Phase I will extend from the information center, up Franklin Street and Rumford Avenue, to just under Memorial Bridge. Trail heads will start at the intersection of the Franklin Street and Rumford Avenue and dip near the river where tennis courts were once located. It will wind down behind the library to under Memorial Bridge. Other trail heads will be constructed from the sidewalk and will accommodate wheelchairs as well.

The park and trail will stretch about 1,700 feet on or near the river.

A setting to enjoy

“This will be a wonderful setting for cultural activities, maybe an amphitheater, a wonderful reason for people to stop in our town,” said Macgregor.

Eventually, the committee wants to see the trail extend over Memorial Bridge, then along Morency Park and back to the information center, a walking trail of about three-quarters of a mile.

The committee will take its plan to the Planning Board in the next couple of weeks to request permission to remove dead trees and to cut brush. That much can be done without DEP approval, said Amy Segal of DeWan Associates. Any further work must receive DEP permission. That process probably will take four to six months, said DuBois.

Jolene Lovejoy, a selectman and committee member, told the group that she will know whether the plan may get a U.S. Department of Transportation grant by the end of the month. So far, the committee has worked with about $16,000 in grant money.

‘No guarantees’

Lovejoy met with staff from U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud’s and U.S. Rep. Tom Allen’s offices when she went to Washington earlier this year. She said Michaud will take the request for park and trail financing to the federal Transportation Committee within the next few weeks.

“There are no guarantees, but we could get some, all or none of our $250,000 request,” she said. “I believe we stand a very good chance.”

If that money doesn’t come through, other money might. Macgregor is continuing to write grant applications for a variety of sources.

Chisholm Park once stretched from Morse Bridge to lower Rumford Avenue where the town now dumps snow. Over the years, with a lack of care and changing needs of the community, most of the park became overgrown or disappeared. Some of those trails can still be identified, however.

eadams@sunjournal.com