The Freeborn County Trail Association will hold a meeting next month at the Hayward City Hall on the Blazing Star Trail.

It is slated to take place at 6:30 p.m. June 16. The purpose of the public meeting is to hear an update on the Blazing Star Trail’s progress.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Blazing Star Trail Joint Powers Board have been invited to the meeting.

At a Joint Powers Board meeting in February, DNR officials said, if all goes according to plan, a design for the trail extension will be completed by fall, and construction will start late spring or early summer in 2010. It would be the second of four phases of trail construction to eventually connect Albert Lea to Austin.

In 2003, the state awarded funding to build the existing trail from Albert Lea to Myre-Big Island State Park.

In 2005, a second chunk of money came in a state bonding bill. It allocated about $1.5 million for the construction of the trail from the state park to Hayward, featuring a 1,000-foot bridge over Albert Lea Lake near the Iowa, Central & Eastern Railroad bridge. This money, which remains intact, must be spent or tied to contracts by Dec. 31, 2010, or it will be returned to the state.