Victor Expects AJ Trail Easements Vote

VICTOR — Victor's city council is now expected to vote Wednesday on the AJ Trail easements, which would open a legal route from Cemetery Road onto the public land above town. According to the city, plans have changed since last week and it will now have enough council members to decide the item.

We reported Sept. 16, on the city clerk's account, that there would be no vote that night. The council seats four members. With one out of town and Council member Erica Linnell, whose late husband the trail is named for, recusing herself, two were left to decide it. With the absent member now expected back, three are.

The AJ Trail easements would let hikers and mountain bikers cross from the AJ Linnell Trail onto the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service ground beyond. The trail's upper end reaches federal land only where private and federal parcels meet at a corner, and the city's staff report says corner-crossing "is not legal, preventing the public from continuing onto adjacent BLM and USFS property."

The agenda Victor posted Sept. 17 lists the easements as item IV.a and notes that action may be taken. The item carried the same wording in August. The council heard it then and continued it to no set date on a 3-0 vote. The city's council page names the BLM, Idaho Fish and Game, Mountain Bike the Tetons and Teton Valley Trails and Pathways as scheduled presenters. Moving that continuance in August, Mayor Sue Muncaster said it was "important to have the Fish and Game and the BLM here to be able to speak to what they would either accept or not."

Thirty people and organizations wrote the council between Aug. 26 and Sept. 16. Twenty-seven asked it to accept the easements and approve the maintenance agreement. In August, 21 wrote and 12 asked the council to hold off for further environmental review.

The Teton County commissioners wrote Sept. 14 that the board "fully supports the adoption of the two easements connecting the AJ Linnell Trail to the adjacent BLM lands."

Amy and Forrest McCarthy, who live in Victor, asked the council in a Sept. 14 submission to "pause all approvals regarding the Bender and Thomas easement acceptances and partner MOUs" and to require the BLM to prepare "a single, site-specific Environmental Assessment covering all four phases of the project as one connected action." The Greater Yellowstone Coalition wrote in August urging the council to hear from Fish and Game and BLM staff, while noting that "city-level private property issues, like these easements, are not generally within our purview."

What to watch: The council meets Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 6 p.m. in City Council Chambers, 138 N Main St., Suite 201. The easements are item IV.a.

Victor Now Expects to Vote on the AJ Trail Easements Wednesday

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