By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
The Wood County Park District plans to increase the miles of multi-use trails available in the county.
At the Oct. 13 board meeting, the park commissioners took action they hope will lead to the expansion of two existing trails—the Chessie Circle Trail and the North Coast Inland Trail.
The Chessie Circle Trail is on track to be extended from Bates Road to Lime City Road, which is Phase Three of the trail project.
Phase One created a half-mile trail from East River Road to the W.W. Knight Preserve, 29530 White Road, Perrysburg. Phase Two, which is expected to begin in 2027, will extend the trail to Bates Road.
The railroad corridor that makes up Phase Three is currently still owned by CSX.
“We’re in talks with them to try to acquire that,” said Wood County Park District Executive Director Chris Smalley. “ODOT (Ohio Department of Transportation) requires some paperwork and some extra steps before we can use any of the funds to make an acquisition,” he explained.
The board approved one of the next steps by authorizing Assistant Director Andrew Kalmar, who is also the Local Project Administrator for the park district, to sign the LPA Federal Local-Let Project Agreement.
The Chessie Circle project, a joint project with the Wood County Port Authority and other regional groups, “secured an earmark from U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s office that will give us $1 million for the Chessie Circle Trail in general. Then, fortunately, our state representatives were able to secure $250,000 for Chessie Circle Trail, which we will then be able to use state funds as a match for federal funds.”
The timelines for Phase Three will be 2027 and beyond.
Plans for North Coast Inland Trail
The North Coast Inland Trail is a multi-use path that starts on the east side of the state and runs west across the north part of Ohio, Smalley explained.
Ottawa County Park District has been working on the project for several years and is currently building it through Genoa to the Wood County line.
“We will pick it up from the county line and take it into Millbury. From there, we’ll figure out where it goes,” Smalley said.
“The Wood County Park District was one of the first supporters of the (North Coast Inland Trail) project. We’ve been very vocal over the years that eventually we would hope to bring it to Wood County,” he said. “We are finally at a point where we are close to Wood County.”
Smalley had the foresight in 2022 to request the Wood County Planning Commission earmark Open Space funds for the future expansion of the North Coast Inland Trail, “whether that is in one, two or five years,” he said. “It was a couple years longer than I probably anticipated, but that fund has been sitting there since the 1990s. … It was frozen taxpayer funds.”
They passed by a unanimous vote to earmark $45,789.65 that will allow the park district to acquire 8.17 acres to bring the trail into Wood County.
Smalley was authorized to represent the park district board for all closing proceedings related to the property acquisition.
Fall in the county parks
Fall colors in the county parks have been developing for more than three weeks since the autumnal equinox, Senior Naturalist Bill Hoefflin reported at the board meeting.
The colors are usually first noticeably along the rivers and riparian corridors, he said. “A lot of our trees in those corridors just got to yellow and brown, like our cottonwoods or walnuts. But I would encourage everyone to take State Route 105 that runs along the Portage River to see pretty thick stands of sugar maples that turn brilliant reds and oranges and yellows.”
According to local meteorologists, this region “had prime conditions for some of the best fall color that we can experience in northwest Ohio,” he said. “If it’s too dry, the colors aren’t as vibrant. If it’s too wet, the colors get delayed until November, and by then the leaves tend to fall without changing.”
While the colors are beautiful to see, Hoefflin said the colors “are the trees cry for help.” The red colors are anthocyanins, which are produced because the leaf is stressed.
“So when you see the reds, we enjoy it. The tree is fine, but the leaves, the cells in the leaves are screaming, ‘I’m not well, I’m dying,’” he said.
This time of year, the trees are also finishing products they’ve been producing since spring. Valerie Deehr, program naturalist, shared some of the fruit of the trees found in the parks, including acorns nuts and berries.
She shared about mast, the fruits of the trees, by showing items such as an Osage orange also known as monkey balls, honey locust pods, oak acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, and, of course, Buckeyes.
In other business, the board:
- Approved $10,203.35 to purchase commercial-grade facility chairs and racks for the W.W. Knight Nature Preserve from MITY, Inc.
- Adopted updated policies and procedures for the Park Police Policy Manual in the following sections: training policy, officer response to calls, temporary custody of juveniles, public alerts, investigation prosecution, unmanned aerial system, investigative task force or specialized unit and records section.
- Learned that the Wood County Park Foundation has increased from $62,000 last year to more than $107,000.
- Heard the Friends of the Wood County Parks’ Fall Native Plant Sale raised approximately $10,300, exceeding the 2025 fall sale by $3,000, and the Drop by Drop event proceeds were more than anticipated, which increases the number of plant beds at J.C. Reuthinger Memorial Preserve that will have irrigation systems added. The friends’ fall membership event is Sunday (Oct. 18) at Otsego Park, featuring a presentation about genealogy through cooking, by Alyssa Garland from the Wood County Museum.
