Jackson soccer park waiting on ditch easement

Parents of soccer-dribbling children who have worked tirelessly to bring a soccer park to Jackson are trying to pull the project out of a ditch.

Specifically, a drainage ditch off just off the soccer park property.

Everything except the ditch is ready to go.

The park association has raised $100,000, secured a $150,000 grant, graded and prepared the site. The city has extended utilities.

The Jackson Industrial Recruitment Association is ready to hand over the flood-plain property to the city. The city is ready to take control of the project and the official stampers in Jefferson City are ready to sign off on the project that has been several years in the making and is already a year or so behind schedule.

But then there's this ditch.

The soccer park association got permission from the property owners -- Butch Meyr and the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Railway -- and cleaned out the ditch in hopes that the land would drain more effectively so it could get heavy equipment onto the fields and start building the park. The ditch is essential for drainage.

But Brent Wills of the soccer park association hasn't obtained the off-property storm-water easements from the property owners. It's not that he hasn't tried. It's not that the land owners aren't willing to donate the easements.

But obtaining an easement isn't as easy as knocking on a door and collecting a signature. Lawyers usually get involved. And in this case, the land owner is a farmer in the middle of cattle-showing season, Wills said. Butch Meyr has more things on his mind than an easement donation. To further delay matters, his attorney is out of town.

As the calendar pages flip toward October, Wills and the rest of the soccer park association members are trying desperately to get things wrapped up so they can sow the fields. They estimate they have five weeks of planting season left. It will take three weeks to plant the fields, giving the city a two-week window to transfer the property.

Officially, the city doesn't need the easements as long as the city doesn't go on the property. However, a few aldermen and the city engineer are apprehensive about going ahead with a project when it has no authority to clean up a ditch that will directly affect the soccer park.

A straw poll taken at Monday night's Jackson Board of Aldermen study session revealed four were in favor of moving ahead with the project without the easements. Three, Barbara Lohr, Larry Cunningham and Dale Rauh, were against. Phil Penzel was absent and, depending on his opinion, the vote may go to the mayor for a tie-breaker.

The city has no authority to demand the easements. Lohr and Cunningham were afraid that one of the property owners might use the situation as leverage to demand payment from the city in return for the easement.

Wills, who had already spent nine hours on Monday trying to nail down the easements, said he would try again on Tuesday.