County Removes Yamhelas Trail From TSP

News Register Jan 30, 2026 By SCOTT UNGER

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Board axes Westsider Trail from county plan with 2-1 vote

Bubba King outvoted in effort to send issue to the ballot box

The Yamhill County Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 Thursday to remove the Yamhelas Westsider Trail project from future plans.

In opposition, Commissioner Bubba King argued 80% of people who submitted testimony wanted to keep the long-planned 15.25-mile trail in the county Transportation System Plan and motioned to send the matter to a public vote.

“With how much grandstanding this board has given on rejecting DEI principles and supporting the minority options, I can’t really support (siding with the 20% in opposition),” he said. “This is no longer a decision that I think that three people should have or make on behalf of over 100,000 people.”

The planned trail from McMinnville to Gaston was originally included in the TSP by ordinance in 2012. Removing it from the TSP eliminates it as a future project. In October, Commissioner Kit Johnston introduced an item to begin the process of removal, which was then advanced by a 5-0 vote of the planning commission in December.

Last week, the board heard testimony on the topic from trail proponents and local farmers in opposition. They delayed voting to allow more time to consider the arguments.

Commissioner Mary Starrett recalled issues with the trail throughout her 12 years on the board and compared it to the unsuccessful expansion plans of Riverbend landfill.

“The trail will be no different. We would be building another dump. Knowing it is not the place to build a trail and continuing,” she said.

Proponents throughout the decade-plus argument said there was little opposition and didn’t account for issues like trail maintenance and ongoing costs, Starrett said.

She criticized land-use watchdog group Friends of Yamhill County for remaining silent on the trail and former county employees for working behind the backs of commissioners to pursue the trail.

“I say it’s time to end this charade, because it’s an expensive, ill-conceived boondoggle that became the cause celebre for a lot of past commissioners and staff who became obsessed with bringing it to completion despite the red flags,” she said. “Yamhill County has a bounty of options for safe and beautiful trails; the railroad right of way and EFU land is not one of them.”

Johnston discussed several other outdoor recreation and trail projects that could realistically come to fruition, including potential plans at Whiteson Park, Metsker Park and safety-enhanced bike lanes on Meadow Lake connecting to Panther Creek Road, where a planned 25-mile bike trail on Bureau of Land Management land recently received $3 million in federal funding.

“We have a lot of project opportunities for our county,” Johnston said. “Some have funding, some don’t. Some require conditional use permits, some don’t. Some are as simple as a group of people coming together for a few weekends and beginning to start work.”

He described differences between the Yamhelas trail and the popular Banks-Vernonia State Trail, which is managed and funded by state resources and doesn’t disturb nearly as much farmland, he said.

If the trail plan is abandoned and corridor property is sold for non-public use, it will trigger repayment of a $1.7 million grant the county obtained from the Oregon Department of Transportation when it purchased the trail land. If the county keeps the trail in the TSP but doesn’t develop it in the next 11 years, those funds must be repaid at that time.

Johnston suggested that debt could be partially transferred if the city of Carlton pursues a plan to purchase its section inside city limits or if ODOT takes ownership of the rail corridor bordering Highway 47 for future utility use.

“With no likely path forward, the county has to start planning for what our future of trails look like in Yamhill County,” he said.

King compared the issue to the recent state transportation bill, which was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Tina Kotek before residents gathered enough signatures to send the issue to voters.

The Trails PAC group is in the process of gathering signatures for two measures aimed at preserving public use of the trail and requiring a public vote before any county trail or recreation property is sold.

“The same as we’ve seen with the transportation package, we have citizens that want to do the work to put this on the ballot and to choose,” he said. “And you’ve sat here and railed me no more than four times on my … reluctant support on a transportation (package).”

He added, “I don’t understand how we can get to this point, how one is different than the other.”

The board has the power to bypass the signature process and send the issue to the voters, King argued. His motion was defeated 2-1.

King then motioned to hold off on the removal until signatures are collected, which was also voted down 2-1.