Passionate opposition has killed a move to sell more than 100 acres of Jackson County’s most ecologically important land for development — though the county executive said Monday that selling Blue River Glades was never really a possibility.
The county had put the land on a surplus list, along with nine other properties, and described it as all but useless, though there are miles of popular, volunteer-built hiking and mountain bike trails snaking through the property.
On Saturday, about 60 people gathered in the trees on the site to protest the possible sale, but by then, the deal was already off.
“My understanding is there’s been no bids,” said county legislator Sean Smith at the protest. “We can formally retract it. I don’t see anybody on the legislature that doesn’t want to go ahead and do that."
And Monday, Jackson County Executive Phil LeVota shut down the bid process for property, ending any possibility of a sale.
"The purpose of including this property in the surplus process was to determine whether there was interest from potential buyers and explore opportunities for its future use," said Phil LeVota in a statement.
The blowup over selling the land, and the sheer number of people using it, surprised county officials. The statement about killing the sale included a vague threat to volunteer trail-building groups who’ve been working on the site for more than 20 years.
“With the public interest in the area, it has come to light that many people are accessing this piece of property without any authorization from Jackson County,” said the statement. “If there have been ‘volunteers’ thinking they are maintaining and changing county land without county authority, that can be problematic on many levels and that action should stop.”
The trail-building group joined forces with neighborhood leaders, mountain bike riders, hikers and rock climbers to protest the county opening a bid process for more than 100 acres of land that included the Blue River Glades Nature Area, where 200- to 300-year-old chinkapin oak trees grow atop limestone cliffs.
“I think people just aren't aware of what's actually going on here, and they took it as an opportunity to very visibly and very publicly shout, 'This is what we're doing down here,” said Scott Wagner, executive director of the Kansas City environmental protection group Bridging the Gap.
