Swimming hole along the Darby Creek Trail upstream from Kent Dog Park
Delaware County Council passed $10 million in new funding for open space preservation at a recent meeting. This funding will be used as matching dollars for the Delaware County Planning Department to use when applying for state and federal grants.
Council Chairman John McBlain issued the following statement:
I am very proud that Delaware County Council today approved the creation of an Open Space, Parks and Recreation Fund in the amount of 10 Million Dollars. Ever since the adoption of our Open Space, Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Plan a couple of years back I have wanted to create this fund to help the County and our municipalities acquire open space and fund improvements to parks. We created a task force to develop guidelines about how such funds would be spent and Council approved those guidelines just last month. Today, we voted on a financing package that passed 4-1 which included this Open Space Fund. I hope that this $10M will leverage another $10-20M in state and federal grants, municipal funds and private conservation funds to advance open space and our parks.
We are highly encouraged by this move by Delaware County Council. With this commitment, Delaware County municipalities will now have much more competitive grant applications than they have in the past, which can pave the way for accelerated Circuit Trails development!