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Big plan revealed at chamber meeting

by Ben Granderson Clark Fork Valley Press
| October 28, 2015 4:35 PM

The Thompson Falls Business Chamber Meeting was held last Friday at Minnie’s Montana Cafe. There was one large topic discussed during the meeting.

After a few upcoming dates and events were discussed Mayor Carla Parks, gave the special announcement that the Downtown Thompson Falls Master Plan has been completed and will be presented at a celebration October 27 at the Thompson Falls Community Center.

Speaking to the chamber, Parks explained what the Master Plan was for anyone who was unaware of what the project, which has taken five years to plan.

Parks explained the Master Plan as a summary of what everyone wanted. She explained that after multiple town meeting and surveys, the Master Plan has been created based on what the town community feels are appropriate actions to better the downtown. She said that the Master Plan is a way to bring more vitality and prosperity to Thompson Falls. She spoke in a manner to create the idea that the plan would put the town on the map, saying the plan is, ‘The thing to make people want to come here.’

To express the strength of the plan, Park described how Land Solutions LLC, a land use planning firm, was utilized to create the plan after hearing the voice of the public and doing their own assessment of Thompson Falls Downtown. She then added that in order to receive the grants the town has been given or working on getting are a testament to the extensive work and data collection done by the Downtown Committee.

Quickly reviewing the plan, Park described how the short, medium and long term actions are all created to meet four categories; Access and Mobility, Awareness, Amenities, and Appearance.

Parks described what will occur after the celebration on the 27th, “Our actions from there after we have the plan in place and we evaluate what should be done in short term or long term at that point we will probably have more public input on the whether the project is good or not. We do have a couple in the works now, the Ainsworth Field and renovation of the improvements of Ainsworth field and that is a 3 stage development.” She then added that the Ainsworth field project was what the town considered one of its most important actions.

The other action Parks said that was already being worked on was the effort to get a grant to start the work on a creating a town brand and theme.

To conclude her talk on the plan, Parks expressed that the plan was the town’s vision. She described the branding and marketing of the town as the community’s town’s and not the Downtown Committee. She invited people to the celebration and said that the plan could be found in the Thompson Falls Library and Online at http://www.downtowntfalls.com/.

 

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