The Roanoke Parks Foundation says it will no longer work with the city on projects after over half of the foundation’s members left following the completion of its recent Mill Mountain trails work.
On April 30, the foundation sent a letter to the city council and city manager, detailing issues the group encountered while working with the city, and stating that the foundation will pause their involvement on any city-managed projects, including any future trail work in Mill Mountain Park.
“Spoken plainly, we’re disappointed in how this project turned out. We believe that future partnerships should be structured in a way that supports trust, not to mention efficiency and experience,” wrote foundation president David Olson, vice president Whit Ellerman and former city parks director Michael Clark.
The foundation was formed in 2022 to supplement funding and volunteer work for parks projects through public-private partnerships to help the city’s parks and recreation department.
The group’s flagship project was a major trail expansion completed at Mill Mountain Park in October 2025 — the largest professionally built trail project in the city’s history, and the first in the city to use machinery to build trails. The project added about four miles of trails to Mill Mountain, including the first three trails specifically designed for bikers on the mountain. The trails were built in 2025 through $450,000 in donations that the foundation received — $200,000 over the group’s original goal.
That followed a 2021 amendment to the Mill Mountain Trails Plan, approved by the city council, to add plans for more trail corridors. In 2018, Roanoke received a Silver designation as an International Mountain Biking Association Ride Center — the only city on the East Coast to receive the designation.
Substantive changes in city staffing, project coordination and overall approach will be necessary before the foundation reconsiders reengaging, according to the letter.
The rift comes as the city council approved a 2026-27 budget last month that eliminates parks and recreation maintenance funds for several years, starting next July. Vice Mayor Terry McGuire says this continues to chip away at a parks budget that is already a “miniscule amount” of the city budget and has already faced cuts when it should be more of a financial priority.
“To then see volunteers and the people raising public private dollars, to hear from them that they’re so upset that they’ll walk away from the city at this time, it just makes my head start to spin,” McGuire said.
A process breakdown
Olson said that Mill Mountain’s pathways had largely stayed the same for a decade.
“I moved here 15 years ago, I rode the trails and was like this is awesome,” Olson said. “But they haven’t really done anything with the trails.” He said he believed that Roanoke was “falling behind” other Southeastern mountain towns in terms of dedicating resources to outdoor infrastructure.
Olson said when a group approached the city about it, the city cited understaffing and a lack of funding as roadblocks to creating new trails.
“So, we created the parks foundation,” Olson said. “That seemed like a natural answer to whatever they were struggling with.”
What the foundation got in return was an “arduous” process, Olson said, that resulted in five of the foundation’s eight members leaving the nonprofit.
“It just turned into a slog,” Olson said. “Something that should have been positive and fun and, like, a huge win for the city and the people, just turned into this thing where we almost were bothering the city with the project.”
Olson said the foundation began the Mill Mountain trails project under Michael Clark, the foundation member who was the city’s director of parks and recreation from 2016 to 2024. He left that job over his own frustrations with the city, according to a letter written by Clark upon his resignation. After city staff turnover, including a new parks director, the new employees “didn’t have any sort of enthusiasm or vision for what we were trying to do,” Olson said. “But we had already started.”
Olson said he couldn’t figure out the chain of command and that the group struggled to get responses to emails. The city did not respond to questions regarding communication issues in a statement to Cardinal News.
Andy Gill, the foundation’s first president, said that the group asked the city for a 10% funding match in March of 2025 and received no funds. That funding request, according to emails between city officials, was $34,000. Cardinal News obtained numerous emails between the foundation and city leadership through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
“I think at that point we started to realize that there wasn’t buy-in at the (city) leadership level,” Gill said.
Gill said that having to adhere to a procurement process goes against one of the major reasons for creating a public-private partnership — streamlining the process without municipal red tape.
“The steps that the city prescribed were not necessary, and precedents set in other municipalities where foundations like ours can be more nimble to accomplish things quicker than the traditional pathways,” Gill said.
A statement from Laura Carini, the city attorney, said that any project benefiting the city must comply with all public procurement laws, “regardless of where the funds come from.”
In May 2024, both the city and the foundation signed a memorandum of understanding, which stated that the foundation would follow a procurement process and donate trails and volunteer services to the city via a donation.
Gill’s letter to city leaders said that the group exceeded fundraising goals and was able to reserve a “considerable budget” for trail maintenance, but the foundation was told that city leadership would “unilaterally” take over management of trails, and that conversation “remains at an impasse.”
Mayor Joe Cobb said he believes there was a misunderstanding as to “what happens when assets are transferred.”
In an October email from the city’s parks and recreation director, Cindy McFall, to Olson, she stated that the city takes over responsibility of the trails, pursuant to the MOU.
A statement from the city emailed to Cardinal News in response to a list of questions stated that it “supports the overall goal of improving and expanding” trails on Mill Mountain.
“When volunteers or non-City employees perform work on City property, additional precautions are necessary to protect both the public and the individuals doing the work,” the statement read, adding that the city “rarely” allows others to procure services on behalf of the city. A city spokesperson said McFall did not have anything to add to the statement.
“A large, multi-party project like this involves complex coordination and differing perspectives, but we appreciate the Parks Foundation’s contributions and constructive collaboration,” reads a city statement.
Cobb and city councilmen Phazhon Nash and Nick Hagen said in emails obtained by the Freedom of Information Act that the foundation’s decision is concerning.
The foundation has excess dollars that Olson said the group does not have plans for at this time, but he said he has had informal conversations with the county suggesting potential matching funds that would be used for expansion at Explore Park in Roanoke County.
A county spokesperson on May 29 stated that while no formal conversations have occurred, “staff would welcome the opportunity to discuss potential projects as the development mission of Explore Park is through public-private partnerships.”
“The goal was to help the city,” Olson said. “I mean, we could easily take the money and go build trails at Explore Park, but what we were trying to do was help the city of Roanoke.”
‘It’s just enraging to me that we can’t do better.’
McGuire, the vice mayor, said that during the 2008 nationwide recession, the parks and recreation and urban forestry budgets were “gutted” — and there’s been no real recovery since.
The fiscal year 2009 budget shows parks and recreation included in a number of positions that were cut and unfunded from the budget. That year’s budget for parks, recreational and cultural expenditures was about $270,000 lower than the year prior, at a total of about $11.5 million.
McGuire noted that the city council received a presentation showing that residents’ satisfaction with parks has decreased in recent years.
McGuire, too, said he often hears feedback from volunteers who feel like a “nuisance” to the city.
“And that’s crazy, especially with how financially strapped we are,” McGuire said. “And we’re saying we need all these nonprofits and volunteers to step in where the city can’t do this work, it’s just enraging to me that we can’t do better.”
Jim Pickens, president of Trees Roanoke and a member of the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, said he’s worked for two other related agencies and that Roanoke is “no different” than any other.
“I guess there are some people in the parks department that feel like their kingdom may be stepped on and they don’t want to relinquish any control or any power with outsiders, and that is a problem,” Pickens said. “There are some areas of the city whose people just don’t seem to work well with the citizens.”
Work on the Mill Mountain Trails hasn’t yet been completed, said Frank Maguire, interim executive director with the Roanoke Mountain Biking Alliance. The volunteer group works to build and rehab trails in Roanoke through a memorandum of understanding with the city.
Maguire said he rode the trails last week and said several items, like naturalizing of the trails, have yet to be completed. Olson offered up RMBA’s help in getting a number of “punch list” items completed in his October email to McFall, and she responded, stating that the city would complete that work.
It’s unclear at this time what foundations, if any, might be willing to step in and provide funding that will be cut from the city’s parks maintenance budget.
