$200k for a "Greenway Plan?"

Apparently, we don't have any employees in the city, county, or in any of the nearly dozen or so municipalities who can do this themselves, despite the fact that we pay millions for them.  This apparently has to be oursourced.

StarNews:

The plan would set the stage for future trails and open space in New Hanover County and could make it easier to get grants for parks and trails.

The Wilmington City Council will consider spending 20,000 Tuesday night as a contribution for development of the plan. The WMPO is looking for $20,000 from the county as well and plans to put in $160,000 from the organization.

This of course is when in the same meeting City Council approved an extension of the finish date for the third leg of the cross city trail to about 2 years after originally projected.  By the way, this section of the trail is about 2 miles and costing us at least $1M a mile (it could be more, but I haven't gotten a breakdown I'm 100% satisfied with.)

Additionally, it's costing Wilmington more than $20,000 because we provide a lot of the funding for the MPO.  In fact, I was talking to the head of the MPO the other day and I got the impression that we pay for about 1/3 of their total costs.  They use our facilities.  They have seven employees and we pay for a good chunk of their compensation is the impression I got, but again I'm waiting for a clear breakdown of those numbers before I can say with 100% certainty.

So, that means a good chunk more than $20k is coming from Wilmington.