The Town of Bayfield has been awarded a grant of $327,857 from Great Outdoors Colorado (GoCo) to buy 23.6 acres from Bayfield School District.
The land is between the old middle school and the Pine River. The town intends to use it as park land linked to Joe Stephenson Park. The school district bought the land about 10 years ago as a potential site for a new school. The lower part of the land is flood plain.
The district has since replaced that with 40 acres just south of the current middle school, purchased for $715,000 with part of the proceeds from a bond issue extension approved by voters in 2012.
The town's 2015 budget approved on Dec. 2 includes $455,000 to buy the land, including the GoCo money. The rest is the town's local match. The town has applied a couple of times before for the grant but was not successful.
This and other awards in GoCo's current funding cycle were announced this week. Bayfield was one of eight rural communities to receive $2.3 million in grants, out of 44 applications with requests totalling $12.6 million, according to GoCo. The grants will be leveraged with local matches totalling $1.3 million.
Grants will help rural communities improve access to recreational areas, refurbish existing facilities that communities could not afford to do on their own, purchase land for parks, and upgrade kids' playgrounds.
GoCo money comes from Colorado Lottery proceeds to help preserve and enhance the state's parks, trails, wildlife, rivers, and open spaces. An independent board reviews grant applications and makes the awards.
Bayfield previously earned a $160,000 grant in 2005 to help develop ballfields at the park, and a $14,650 grant in 2003 to help build a skatepark. Most recently, the town received $45,000 for equipment for Gosney Park near Bayfield Middle School.
GoCo funded two other projects in La Plata County for a total investment of $33,000. The Ignacio School District Trail Project will help connect schools to their communities and remove barriers for residents that want to access the outdoors. The project will improve two existing trails and build a new trail. Access to the hill above town, now home to two new schools in Ignacio, was identified as a major hindrance to growth and safety for the community.
The final project in La Plata County will create fuel breaks across the Newmyer Conservation Easement in Durango.
