A contract to initiate a management plan for a national heritage area that includes Douglas County and 40 other Kansas and Missouri counties could be signed later this week.

Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area Board of Trustees is in the process of raising $300,000 to pay for that plan, which will be developed in conjunction with a management team from a branch of National Geographic. So far half of it has been raised by private and public sources, according to a letter to Douglas County commissioners from the trustee chairman Deanell Reece Tacha.

In her letter, Tacha asked the county to guarantee the remainder of the funds if the fund-raising falls short. She emphasized, however, that she doesn’t think that will happen.

“I think it is nothing short of remarkable that we have already raised half of the funding in these beginning months. Thus I have every reason to believe that we are only asking you to serve as backup,” Tacha wrote.

Commissioners Bob Johnson, Jere McElhaney and Charles Jones, however, agreed during their meeting Monday that the county would loan the remainder of the funding to the heritage board, if that becomes necessary. The heritage board would have to repay the county.

Tacha, a federal court appeals judge, was unable to be at the county meeting. But Judy Billings, Lawrence Convention and Visitor’s Bureau director who has played a leadership role in the heritage area efforts, told commissioners that the management plan will guide the heritage area in how it does business during the next decade.

The heritage area was created in 2006 by Congress and President Bush. The area covers much of eastern Kansas and western Missouri. The designation will help market the area for tourists because of its Civil War era history.