WEST BOUNTIFUL -- If an agreement is reached for Davis County cities to take care of the Legacy Parkway trail system, West Bountiful likely won't be a part of it.
An interlocal agreement among the Utah Department of Transportation, Woods Cross, Centerville, West Bountiful, Farmington and North Salt Lake is currently being considered by the cities.
UDOT built the trail during construction of Legacy Parkway, which was completed in September 2008. UDOT maintained the trail for more than a year, but the 12-month warranty period the department included on its trail construction ended in November 2009.
As a result, the trail has gone without maintenance since then.
All along the process, UDOT has maintained that its intent was to turn over the trail system to the cities.
The cities are expected to reluctantly take over the trail's maintenance -- except for West Bountiful.
"We're probably the lone wolf in this thing," said West Bountiful Mayor Ken Romney. "And we aren't trying to cause any problems, but we're in a unique situation."
Because West Bountiful's portion of trail sits at the geographic low point of the system, it's been plagued by drainage problems since the beginning.
"Some days it's dry and everything is fine," Romney said. "But we've had ongoing issues with trail drainage and drainage actually coming onto the road."
Romney and City Administrator Craig Howe said the city feels it's unfair to take on maintenance of the trail, especially since it would essentially be caring for a problem it didn't create.
"Our city council won't even entertain the idea until the drainage issue has been resolved," Romney said. "It's a great trail system, but we shouldn't have to be responsible for maintaining it when it already has all these drainage issues."
UDOT Region One spokesman Vic Saunders said a UDOT district engineer has been in discussions with the city to try and find an answer to the city's concerns.
"We are making some progress (with UDOT)," Romney said.
Romney said that, if the trail drainage issue is sufficiently solved, the city would revisit the idea of participating in the interlocal agreement.
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