At the June and July city council meetings in Scanlon, Mayor Annette Bryant talked for 45 minutes about getting a trail, which will cost more than $400,000. She had Carlton County engineer JinYeene Neumann at the July and August meetings trying to persuade the council to give the go-ahead on this trail.

At the first two meetings, three of the council members were against spending another $15,000. Neumann said if they don’t agree to this grant, Scanlon may not get any grant applied for in the future. (We have never been able to get any before, as we are too small.)

At the August meeting,...