Folsom taps state to fund second giant Johnny Cash guitar pick

Folsom is asking the state this week for $425,000 to fund the second seven-foot guitar pick on the Johnny Cash Trail. The Folsom City Council was scheduled this week to apply for the specific grant fund of $425,000 for the city of Folsom Parks & Recreation Department and the "Johnny Cash Trail Art Experience - Cash's Pick No. 2." The city of Folsom is in District 7, represented by Assemblyman Josh Hoover, a Folsom native. Hoover will accept requests from members for projects in the district. Last July, Hoover worked to get Folsom the $425,000 added to the state budget. The Johnny Cash Trail is a 2.5-mile, Class 1 trail with 12,000 users who walk, run and bike it monthly. The city is fundraising to install a world-class public art experience along the trail to celebrate Cash, his music and his Folsom connection. Currently, the Folsom Parks Dept. is working with a contractor to build the first seven-foot-tall bronze guitar pick. Cash Pick One will be located at the western end of the trail adjacent to Riley Street and Greenback Lane above the Rainbow Bridge. "This funding will be critical in starting the landscape architecture, engineering and art fabrication for Cash's Pick No. 2, an identical pick to complete both the beginning and end of the Johnny Cash Trail," staff said in the report. The $425,000 from the State Department of Parks and Recreation would allow Folsom to contract with RRM Design Group for the landscape architecture and engineering for Cash Pick Two. The city will contract with Romo Studios LLC and Adan Romo for the art fabrication of the seven-foot pick. The total grant funding requested was $425,000, and there is no required local match for this grant application. The funding is exclusively allocated to the first and second phases of Cash Pick 2, which includes landscape architecture, engineering and art fabrication, with an estimated completion timeline of 10-12 months. Cash Pick 2 was included in the approved Johnny Cash Trail Art Experience Master Plan, so the project needs no environmental review, staff said. The Johnny Cash Trail connects with existing trails in the Historic Folsom District, where cyclists can access the Folsom connector onto the American River Trail. The 32-mile American River Trail is used by 5 million people annually. The origin of the trail dates to the 1800s, when Jedediah Smith broke a trail between Old Sacramento and Folsom.