A nearly $150,000 grant will help fund more work on improving connections among schools, parks and the riverfront in Clifton.

The Great Outdoors Colorado board awarded a $147,300 grant to Mesa County to develop strategies and an action plan for the Clifton Community Commons. 

 “This grant will help us transform input to action,” said Jeff Kuhr, executive director at Mesa County Public Health, which leads the process.

The board awarded through the grant through the Centennial Program, which helps recipients plan once-in-a-generation projects with lasting effects.

 The Clifton Community Commons project will improve connections among schools, parks and the Colorado River as well as explore the potential for additional open spaces and the continuation of a riverfront trail from Clifton to Palisade. The project also would improve connections within the Grand Valley.

Kuhr said an action group conducted hundreds of surveys and interviews with Clifton residents in 2020 to ask them about their priorities to change. “Respondents’ main concerns included unsafe streets and lack of infrastructure (44 percent), lack of safe things for kids to do (43 percent) and unsafe parks (38 percent),” he said.

The efforts come as Mesa County updates its master plan and a Clifton feasibility study. This study will examine options for possible changes to Clifton governance, including incorporation, establishing a parks and recreation or other special district and shared services agreements.

 With the latest grant, Greater Outdoors Colorado has invested more than
$46.5 million in projects and conserved 18,304 acres of land in Mesa County. Grants have supported Las Colonias Park, the  Lunch Loops and Palisade Plunge trails and Nisley Elementary School playground as well as the conservation of the Johnson Ranch.

Great Outdoors Colorado invests a portion of proceeds from the Colorado Lottery to preserve and improve open spaces, parks, rivers, trails and wildlife habitat in the state. An independent board awards competitive grants to local governments and land trusts and makes investments through the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department.

Created when voters approved a state constitutional amendment in 1992, Great Outdoors Colorado has funded a total of more than 5,500 projects in all 64 counties of the state.