This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from Bridge Michigan, sign up for a free Bridge Michigan newsletter here.
Some residents praised the Petoskey City Council on Monday night after it committed to maintaining public access to portions of the Little Traverse Wheelway, a trail that runs 26 miles from Harbor Springs to Charlevoix.
Parts of “the Miracle Mile,” a scenic stretch of the trail that borders Lake Michigan, showed signs of erosion in 2019 and collapsed in 2020 after lake levels rose. It has been closed ever since.
A landowner couple, Gustav and Courtney Lo, sued the city in August, saying they wanted the city to release two easements on their property that granted public access to the trail because the city had not maintained the trail.
Petoskey City Manager Shane Horn told Bridge Michigan last week that a proposed settlement was constructed by the city attorney and the Los’ attorney. Gustav Lo told Bridge the agreement gave the city a year to obtain millions of dollars and landowner permission to initiate repairing the trail. If the city accepted the agreement and did not meet the demands, it would have had to release the two easements on the Los property, giving up public access to that portion of the trail.
The council discussed the situation during a closed session at its meeting Monday. Afterward, Mayor John Murphy read the following statement:
“It’s the city council’s intention to preserve the easements of the trail. The city council has authorized the city attorney to continue in discussions with the Los with a goal, with the intent to preserve existing easements while addressing the Los’ concerns.”
Three public commenters spoke. They each praised the decision.
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am (for) what the council has said here tonight,” said Petoskey resident John Rohe. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Gustav Lo was not as celebratory.
“It sounds like they are no longer interested in pursuing the offer that was made a few weeks ago,” he told Bridge.
Petoskey City Councilmember Joseph Nachtrab, who represents the ward that includes the damaged trail, told Bridge the proposed settlement was not presented to the council during closed session. He said the only proposed settlement agreement that had been formally presented to the council was one discussed at a March 2 council meeting that said that, if Petoskey released its easements with the Los, they would drop their lawsuit.
The construction firm Baird & Associates told the city in 2024 that repairing the trail would cost $20 million. The council was also under the impression that it would need to seek easements and permission from several landowners to move forward with repairs.
For those reasons, at the March 2 meeting, Nachtrab initially motioned to accept the agreement. He then withdrew the motion after public commenters said they thought the city would be making a mistake. Nachtrab said he’s now questioning exactly what kind of new or modified easements the city would need to move forward with repairs.
Nachtrab said he fully supports the statement read on Monday.
“That trail, that easement section is absolutely … it’s amazing,” he said. “If there’s any way that we can come up with some solution, some project, some scope, that we could put the trail back up, that is reasonably protected from erosion, I think we need to try to preserve that.”
Gustav Lo said he would look at what the city puts on the table next.
“We’ll see what they have in mind now,” he said.
