The Porter County Park Board has become the latest public entity to endorse the new Dunes-Kankakee Trail, proposed to run nearly the entire north-south length of Porter County largely along the Ind. 49 right-of-way.

At the request of Porter County Convention, Recreation and Visitor Commission Executive Director Lorelie Weimer, the park board unanimously endorsed a resolution in support of the approximately 22-mile trail.

The PCCRVC will host a press conference this Tuesday formally announcing the plans for the new trail, as well as the new “Beyond the Beach” driving trail that will link more than 50 recreational, natural and historical sites in the county.

While the driving trail is already established, with the route to be revealed next week, the Dunes Kankakee Trail is a long-term project that will be carried out in phases as funding permits.

Weimer told the park board Thursday that the Indiana Department of Transportation is scheduled to do bridge work on U.S. 12 and U.S. 20 in 2011, at which time the bridges will be enhanced with a bike trail that will make up the northern end of the Dunes-Kankakee Trail. The trail will then continue from U.S. 20 to the PCCRVC’s Visitor Center and snake through Porter, Chesterton and the Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve.

“Then it’s going to continue down the road,” she said.

All 11 municipalities in Porter County have already signed resolutions in support of the trail concept, as have the Porter County Commissioners, Porter County Council, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission.

Weimer noted that interest in the trail has been strong, with more than 600 downlands of the trail’s online master plan, even though the trail won’t be officially launched until next week.

The trail’s exact route is tentative. Weimer said that because of safety concerns, the trail can’t be on the Ind. 49 right-of-way from the Visitor Center to the Indiana Toll Road, so it will follow a route that could include a stretch through downtown Chesterton. She also said that the trail might veer off Ind. 49 in Valparaiso as well.

The estimated cost for the trail is projected to be a maximum of $1 million per mile, or up to $22 million total. Weimer said that with the trail largely on the state’s right-of-way, land acquisition costs will be kept to a minimum.

In another matter at Thursday’s park board meeting, the park board determined that a Halloween puppet-making project originally proposed at Brincka Cross House and Gardens park will be held at Sunset Hill Farm County Park instead. The event will be Oct. 24 from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The fee will be $4 per child.

Brincka Cross Supervisor Paula Ramos originally proposed holding the workshop over a series of three Saturdays at Brincka Cross, but concerns were raised about the lack of public parking at the new Furnessville park. Park Board President Rich Hudson noted the potential for park visitors to get stuck due to the lack of appropriate parking. He suggested working with the county highway department and possibly holding fundraisers to establish parking sites at Brincka Cross for public events in the future.

The board agreed that the workshop should be moved to Sunset Hill Farm instead, but because of conflicts with other events at the park in October, the workshop was limited to just one Saturday. Ramos is donating all the puppet making supplies.

Also Thursday, the park board resolved an issue discussed at the last meeting by reaffirming its policy that all dogs at Sunset Hill Farm must be leashed. As suggested by board member David Canright, the park board gave park staff the authority to enforce the leash rule, even if that means calling the County Sheriff’s Department to remove a park visitor in violation.

Also, Park Recreation Supervisor Gayle O’Connor reported that the summer camps at Sunset Hill Farm resulted in a net income of $3,898. O’Connor said she’s pleased the program was profitable, since summer camps are lucky if they break even. She credited the earnings to the fact that most of the staff running the camps are already park employees, minimizing the need to hire out more part-time help as in the past. A total of 136 children attended the naturalist summer camp this year, with another 45 children participating in the Parents as Teachers camp also held at Sunset Hill Farm.