Hayward, Wisconsin
It was about 3 years ago that Don Mrotek announced his retirement from the Alliance Trail Coordinator duties, a position that he held for over 20 years. At the time, we decided to form a committee as his replacement, especially since the ATV sport had grown substantially and demanded more time than one volunteer could handle. The main purpose of this committee is to ensure a cohesive route and trail system is in place throughout our county.
We formed a 7-person committee, and I was elected chair of it – a position I retained for the next 3 years.
This committee and its work were my passion– and even though a volunteer position, I oftentimes spent more time on committee projects and research than I did my real estate career.
During my time heading up this committee, we accomplished a lot – we were successful in our bid to open the county roads in Sawyer County to ATV use, a move which greatly enhanced ATV connectivity for visiting riders, businesses, and local ATV enthusiasts. We also assisted many towns and town residents with opening town roads to ATV use and signing guidance. Our committee also took in and dealt with a multitude of public questions, concerns, and issues, as well as worked on trail re-routes as they came up.
When the county developed their own ATV ordinance, we were right there in the thick of things to ensure the new ordinance terms would satisfy our ATVing needs and progress.
During the development of the county ATV ordinance, the question of road jurisdiction came up between the county and LCO, resulting in the Tribe closing all their existing ATV routes until an agreement was reached. After many meetings with the Tribal Governing Board, we were able to get almost all the previous ATV routes re-opened to ATV traffic within LCO. A future goal was to open more routes within LCO, but as of today, we hadn’t yet reached that.
We are in the midst of developing a dual use trail from Pit Road to Twin Lakes Road and that will hopefully come to fruition by spring of next year as we just got the last landowners’ approval for it. A few other projects are almost complete; a route project from Hospital Rd to Ranch Rd on Hwy 77 only needs signs, and the Hospital Rd to Hospital Rd connector trail crossing Hwy 63, is finished other than the signage. (Don’t use these new routes/trails until we announce their completion on our Alliance FB page)
I was also on the Alliance Public Relations Committee through all of this, and of course, my work overlapped both committees- since these projects required a lot of public interaction and relationship-building with many different stakeholders and government officials.
Recently, I decided to make a change and put all my volunteer efforts into the Public Relations Committee – so at the November 19, 2024, Alliance General Meeting, I announced my resignation from the Government Communications Committee.
After the Alliance meeting announcement, I sent an emailed letter about my resignation to many of my contacts but realize that I missed several folks – so I thought I’d throw this out there.
I am looking forward to passionately promoting our Alliance, our clubs and volunteers, our sponsor businesses, and our sports to the public.
I’ll work on finishing up The Driving Force, as it will be where I publish more articles and stories plus some information pages to help riders – and please help me promote this new website by sharing as much as you can on social media.
It has really been a pleasure meeting so many riders, business owners, and people motivated to further our motorsports agenda over the past 3 years – and I am looking forward to our continued partnerships as I twist over to more of the PR and promotional side of it all! See you on the trail! Cathy