MILLINOCKET – Seeking to help kick-start organized ATV usage in the Katahdin region, the Town Council has approved preliminary design work for, and an application for a grant to build, a multiuse recreational bridge over the Penobscot River’s West Branch.

With Councilor Jimmy Busque having left the meeting to go to work, councilors twice voted 5-0 Thursday, once to appropriate $5,000 in seed money toward hiring an engineer to design the bridge and once to apply for a grant from the Maine Department of Conservation’s Recreational Trails Program.

The votes, council Chairman Wallace Paul said Friday, will not create the multiuse trail network proposed by John Raymond and Brian Wiley of ConnectME, a local organization aimed at increasing the use of ATVs and other recreational vehicles in Katahdin.

Many other obstacles remain, Paul said, but the votes will help remove one significant roadblock.

“They are being smart about things and working at it very hard,” Paul said of Raymond and Wiley. “It’s a great thing in our area to see people who are actually doing things right. I hope that all our groups look at ConnectME and use them as an example of an effective, smart way of approaching things.”

Another $2,000, Wiley said, will be supplied by the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce, of which Wiley is president.

Raymond and Wiley have said that if several conditions are met, Katahdin Forest Management officials would be receptive to allowing a trail on KFM land, mostly near Route 11. The bridge is a key element to the 35-mile trail and would go near Green Bridge.

Raymond, Wiley and Paul Sannicandro, a resident who is assisting them, are proposing a trail that would start on KFM land at the Northern Timber Cruisers clubhouse in Millinocket. It would follow a power line passage to Route 11, then to Green Bridge.

Avoiding nearby ski trails, the ATV course would continue south to the 5 Lakes Lodge area to Schoodic Lake and the Milo-Brownville area, effectively connecting Millinocket to a burgeoning multiuse and ATV trail network in southern Maine.

A council candidate, Raymond has been working for more than a year on creating a multiuse trail system for all-terrain vehicles, bicyclists, bird-watchers, campers, hikers, snowmobilers and other recreationalists. He and his partners are enticed by the multibillion-dollar tourism and recreation industry such trails – particularly with ATV riders – have created in other states.

While the Katahdin region is considered one of the best for snowsledding, a multiuse trail network could help draw tourists and income year round.

Area landowners, however, fear damage created by ATVs, especially in working forests. They complain of littering, and liability issues if riders are hurt – especially where logging trucks roll – and want trails policed.

Raymond and Wiley are continuing to work with area officials and landowners to ensure that landowners’ concerns are met, they said.

If it is built, the bridge’s total cost would be about $150,000, they have said.