On Oct. 4, multiple key players in the development of the Salt Creek Trail will get together to discuss trail and bridge placement.

The Brown County Commissioners, Nashville Town Manager Scott Rudd, Brown County Parks and Recreation Director Mark Shields, the Brown County Schools Board of Trustees, Superintendent Laura Hammack, the engineering firm of Butler, Fairman & Seufert, and Gary and Sheila Oliver have been invited to attend a meeting at 6 p.m. in the Goldberg Room at Brown County High School.

The route of the Salt Creek Trail has been discussed since the early 2000s. The first three-quarter-mile stretch of it opened in 2013. The route topic resurfaced earlier this summer, as plans are being made to place state-owned bridges near the east and west ends of the school-owned Eagle Park.

The bridge on the east end of the schools’ sports fields is planned to connect the Olivers’ property to Eagle Park and, eventually, to a trailhead in Brown County State Park.

The Olivers have been vocal in many public meetings this summer about where the bridge is to be placed.

Last week, their story went statewide when it was distributed by the Associated Press.

Gary Oliver asked the Brown County Commissioners at their Sept. 6 meeting if any new developments had been made on the trail, because a local lawmaker’s office had told him that the commissioners were working to move the bridge off their property completely.

Commissioners Dave Anderson and Diana Biddle said that they heard that a Salt Creek Trail Committee member was talking with someone in Indianapolis about moving the bridge.

“It seems like we’re getting conflicting information, and I am not sure who is talking to who,” Biddle said. “I wish we were all talking to the same person.”

This meeting Oct. 4, set up by Hammack, is an attempt to get everyone in the same room.

One main concern the Olivers have is about the possibility that their property will be used for the trail project through eminent domain. Much debate has occurred over the past several months about whether the county or the state would initiate that action, if it comes down to that.

Biddle said she called INDOT to say the county commissioners would not vote for eminent domain on that property.

Commissioner Jerry Pittman said he would do everything in his power as commissioner to stop the use of eminent domain.

The Olivers would prefer to see the bridge put further downstream, nearer to the existing highway bridge over State Road 46. However, that’s where a wetland was “moved” to replace one that was disturbed during the building of the first trail section. The Olivers would like to see the wetland moved somewhere else, seeing as how it was built there and didn’t naturally occur.

We’re not against this trail at all; we’re against this huge bridge on our property,” Gary Oliver said. “I don’t want to have to look at it.”

The next evening, the couple attended the school board meeting where the bridge also was discussed. Alan Hamersly with Butler, Fairman & Seufert Civil Engineering Firm presented the current proposal for the trail, which runs along the Eagle Park cross country course.

Board member Steve Miller Jr. asked about running it along State Road 46 East instead of along Salt Creek in Eagle Park.

Salt Creek Trail Committee leader Bob Kirlin said that was a possibility since nothing has been “etched in stone.”

“You have the final say. It’s your property. If you would not want it to follow Salt Creek and you want it to follow 46, that’s your decision,” he said. “That’s strictly up to you. You would still have to get to the bridge at the state park entrance there somehow.”

The school board has not signed land use paperwork. In August, the school corporation’s lawyers discovered there was no easement on file. Then-county commissioners Bill Austin, Blake Wolpert and Stephanie Yager had signed the document in 2008, but the school board had not.

The school district’s land purchase offer from INDOT, like the Olivers’, included the possibility of condemnation if not signed, Hammack said.

“If it does go in, if it’s an eminent domain thing with the Olivers and us, we have to do something. I am in favor of it staying parallel with 46 (East),” Miller said.

Hammack said the board wishes to have concerns about safety addressed first — safety of the children using Eagle Park and of the trail itself.

Hammack said part of the proposed trail location goes under water a lot, and so does the existing cross-country trail. She was concerned about the trail crumbling.

Because the proposed public trail is very near the cross-country trail, Hammack said the public trail would have to be closed during cross-country events.

“All of that, paired together then talking about fencing and lighting and ways to make sure that our kiddos are secure, it just led us to that question of whether or not there could be another route,” she said.

Parent Wendy Earnshaw said her daughter uses the existing Salt Creek Trail phase, which goes through the woods behind the YMCA and Brown County Inn, with friends, and that she would be more comfortable with this phase of the trail if it was closer to the state highway or to the north end of the field.

School board member Marlene Barnett agreed.

“I would want them visible at all times. I don’t want what happened up in Delphi (where two young teens were murdered on a trail) to happen in Brown County. There’s just too many people out there who would take advantage of the wooded area,” Barnett said.

The joint meeting Oct. 4 is open to the public.

“We would like to get it resolved and finalized as soon as possible,” Gary Oliver said.

“You wake up in the middle of the night thinking about how all of this is going to work.”