Within the next few years, members of the Crestwood Board of Aldermen hope to establish a loop trail that wraps around Whitecliff Park — one of the parks projects to be funded by Proposition A, which passed in 2024. Aldermen discussed scheduling and plans for the project at the May 26 board meeting.

“It’s been part of our parks master plan for decades, and the Prop A schedule has the engineering of this trail to start next year,” Mayor Scott Shipley said to kick off the aldermen’s discussions.

Through the end of 2026, city staff and the board will work together to compile ideas and recommendations for what the loop trail will look like: the route it will take or features that could be included along the way. Later, in 2027 and beyond, will come the advanced engineering phase as well as construction phases for the trail.

City staff also plans to contract a consulting engineering firm to look at the park and loop trail in order to offer professional recommendations. A subgroup of aldermen is also being put together to offer ideas to the engineers and set a vision for what the trail should be.

But prior to the board’s discussion of the trail or any volunteers for that subgroup, residents stood up during public comment to give feedback on the project. One resident, Daniel Pattengill, raised concerns about how the construction of a loop trail would affect the animals in Whitecliff Park, and specifically the local endangered species.

“I don’t know what (the project) entails, but that sounds like construction in the heart and forest of our park,” he said. “Those animals will not have any place to go, and that construction will be detrimental to them, in my opinion. They don’t have a voice, so I will be the voice for them.”

During discussion, Ward 2 Alderperson Rebecca Now, Ward 3 Alderman Grant Mabie and Ward 4 Aldermen Megan Gadallah and John Sebben all volunteered to be part of the board’s subgroup that would consider the loop trail and make recommendations.

“I think this is great,” Now said about the project. “I’d just like to advocate for a trail that is mulch and dirt, and not concrete. I think it’s important to keep it totally pedestrian in keeping with the natural environment of that special park.”

Sebben added, “I’m interested in making sure it’s not just a trail, but it being something that’s interpretive. Pointing out the endangered species that frequent the park, or the trees. We can add some history and knowledge to it. … We have to do it right, and we will. It just takes time to get to that stage, and it takes input from us, from the residents and from the community.”

Mabie addressed a concern that was also raised by Pattengill during public comment, saying that — even if a paved trail is necessary in the park to account for certain grades or traction — he would not want it to be a place for golf carts or other motorized vehicles.

“We have an enforcement issue,” Mabie said about those vehicles. “There’s probably some things we can do better on that front, but us completing these trails, which have been in the city’s plans for 30+ years, that residents have repeatedly demanded, it’s not to facilitate those kinds of things at all.”

Mabie also brought up the potential of using the informal trails within the park to guide some of the decision-making for where the loop trail will go.

“Our residents have been clamoring for (the loop trail), and hopefully we can deliver one in a way that preserves the natural beauty,” Mabie said. “Unless there was an absolutely compelling reason, I would hope this is something we can do without messing with or cutting down a single tree that would impact any wildlife at all.”