JEFFERSON, Iowa, February 3, 2011 –  A trailside campground — complete with showers and restrooms — should be in place by early June at the trailhead of the Raccoon River Valley Trail in Jefferson.

The Greene County Conservation Board approved the $80,000 project on a 4-1 vote in their monthly meeting held Wednesday, February 2, at the Jefferson Depot, which is also located at the trailhead.

This will be the first campground located right on the RRVT, which covers 64 miles through 11 communities in west central Iowa, with another 25 miles of trail and three more communities being added in the next couple of years. It will be able to accommodate 75 or more tents.

The Jefferson campground project, which has been in the works for several years in one form or another, took a big step toward reality when the county’s conservation director Dan Towers led a successful drive in recent weeks to raise most of the $80,000 in donations from individuals, local companies and government entities.

The conservation board already owns the land where the campground will be located, on the east side of the trail, south of the grain elevator and two other buildings there, and on the west side of the Greene County Fairgrounds.  The fair board has a project in the works to build a new shelterhouse, complete with permanent barbecue grills, on the southeast portion of the campground site.

 Towers said the showers & restrooms building is being ordered immediately.  It will be a pre-cast concrete structure delivered in one piece.  The 10-by-25-foot structure will have two rooms — each with a shower, toilet and sink.

“Polk County Conservation and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources have been using this same building in their parks, and they’re really pleased with them,” Towers said. “We think it will work well in our campground.”

He said “the goal will be Bell Tower Festival weekend” for having the campground completed and operational.  That is June 10-12, when thousands of visitors are expected to be in Jefferson for the annual festival, including hundreds of bicyclists.   Many of the cyclists will be here with the third annual “Tour the Raccoon,” sponsored by the Des Moines Cycle Club, which has riders pedaling up the RRVT from the Des Moines area on Saturday, staying overnight and returning to Des Moines on Sunday.  Many others are expected to compete in special new cycling events during the festival.

Towers told the conservation board that the donations for the cost of the showers & restrooms building includes about $14,000 from the Alice Andrew Estate; $13,475 in a grant from the Greene County Community Foundation; $10,000 in “REAP” funding designated by the conservation board; $7,430 from the City of Jefferson in contributed hook-ups for water and sewer service; $6,000 from the 2008 Jefferson RAGBRAI Committee; $5,000 from the Greene County Board of Supervisors, from the Dreyfus Commodities economic development funds; another $5,000 from the supervisors from local option sales tax funds; $5,000 from Home State Bank; $5,000 from Jefferson Telecom; $5,000 from the Greene County Development Corp.; $650 in donated labor from Alliant Energy; $500 from the Wilcox, Polking, Gerken, Schwarzkopf & Copeland law firm; $500 from Wells Fargo Bank; $100 from Durham Electric, and contributions from others are still being taken.

Conservation board members voting in favor of the project were Ron Fick, David Tipton, Diane Wise and Kevin Wilbeck.  The lone vote against it was by Larry Burkett, who was not attending the meeting but was telephoned at home for his opinion.  Burkett called the project “really a poor decision,” one “that we won’t get done for under $100,000,” and he added that ”this is going to be a parasite on the taxpayers of Greene County, and I want that in the records.”  Wilbeck answered that by saying he thinks the campground, complete with the showers & restrooms, “will help make Jefferson a destination for trail users.  It will be another amenity that will attract more and more people to stay here overnight when they’re using the trail, or to start their trail experience here.”  Eight trail advocates who attended the meeting spoke favorably of the project, one of them Jefferson Mayor Craig Berry. No one attended the meeting to speak in opposition.

Conservation board chairman Tipton told the trail advocates “it would really help if we could have some volunteers or sponsors for this campground, so if maintenance costs become a problem down the road, we could get some help.”