Envision Lincoln examines progress, goals, funding possibilities ahead of meeting on Rural Partners initiative

Lieutenant Governor Mike Cooney and staff members from the Governor's Office of Economic Development are slated to visit with members of the Envision Lincoln team Oct. 22, as part of the fledgling Montana Main Street- Rural Partner's initiative that launched in Choteau Sept. 25.

The initiative, an outgrowth of Gov. Steve Bullock's five-year-old Montana Main Street Project, is part of an effort to bridge the gap between the strong economies seen in Montana's larger cities and the struggling economies in the more rural parts of the state.

"Let's not let our rural communities just become places on a map, let's empower them to get ahead and stay ahead," Cooney wrote in a letter published in the Daily Inter Lake last Sunday. "Let's build the capacity of rural communities so that they can attract new jobs and new residents. Let's strengthen opportunities, especially for young adults so that they can run the family farm or start a business. And let's diversify rural economies to improve community resilience.

Envision Lincoln's goal of building a strong, stable and diverse economy for the community falls squarely in line with goals Cooney outlined, and the group's lead coordinator, Karyn Good, talked about the possibility of partnering with the initiative during an Envision Lincoln Core Team meeting Sept. 26.

"They would love to partner with Envision Lincoln," she said. "They don't want to take us over...they want to offer resources and would love to come meet with us."

Although the Rural Partnership initiative doesn't provide money to organizations, Good said it will help connect Envision Lincoln to state and county partners that can identify tourism, infrastructure and planning grants for project funding for efforts such as the in-town trails system the group has been working to implement since the Trails Steering committee completed the plan in late July.

The trail plan dominated much of the Sept. 26 meeting, which served as an opportunity to get the group's core team members back together to review the goals the Natural Resources, Economic and Health & Well-being Action Teams established at the final Envision Lincoln foundational meeting in March.

"We just kind of want to refresh everybody's memories," Good said, "and we want to revisit project goals."

The Health & Well-being team planned to launch an education and safety plan that included information on why use of the 911 system is vital for Lincoln, and to develop family-friendly, quality-of-life events such as a Farmer's Market.

The Economic team had goals to develop a communications strategy for Lincoln for both residents and visitors, to work on main street revitalization and to implement an in-town trails plan.

The Natural Environment Group was to focus on implementing the motorized and non-motorized trail efforts through the Lincoln Ranger District's Blackfoot Travel Plan and, in an overlap with the Economic team, develop a natural history education trail in town.

A Trails Steering Committee, comprised of members of both the Economic and Natural Resource teams, tackled the interrelated in-town trail efforts and worked with Trust for Public Lands and the Blackfoot Challenge to develop an in-town trail plan for Lincoln.

They completed an action plan for the trails in late July, with trail sections identified by priority.

Good said the in-town trails projects and the main street revitalization project will both require a huge effort.

"I'm getting the feeling the Main Street project is going to be the hardest one to implement," she said.

Due to the time it will take to move just the in-town trails project forward, as well as the project and coordination costs and a decline in participation following the final meeting involving TPL, the Core Team chose to consolidate the efforts of the Trails Steering Committee, Natural Resources and the Economics teams into a single effort, focused pursing implementation of the trail plan first and foremost.

The Lincoln Ranger District already got an assist from Envision Lincoln in developing the new mountain bike and OHV connector trials in the Beaver Creek area. Core team members agreed to set aside $10,000 of the original LOR Foundation Grant for Lincoln to use as matching funds, which helped the District in securing an $83,000 Recreational Trails Program grant from the state.

The group chose not to fold the Health and Well-being team into the trail efforts since the projects it is focused on is unrelated to trails.

The meeting also discussed where Envision Lincoln stands in terms of applying for new grants.

Paul Roos said he hoped that by this stage they would be able to go out with a grant proposal that would bring in a grant "to help us kick something over the goal line," a goal he felt they should keep uppermost in mind.

Ryan Chapin, a team member who works for Five Valleys' Land Trust, said the fact that they have a completed, tangible trail plan in hand may actually make getting high-dollar grants more attainable.

"All the work that come out of Envision and the culmination of a tangible document, in my experience, will really help get some these grants," he said.

Chapin also said FVLT has had conversations about sending a project manager to Lincoln to help with possible easement or acquisition issues necessary to implement the trail plan.

Sara Schmidt said circumstances within the LOR Foundation have changed since they awarded Lincoln the grant that established Envision Lincoln, and their goals related to rural grants seems to be something of a moving target at the moment, but the group agreed looking for grant opportunities through them remained important.

With the busy summer season behind everyone, the Envision Lincoln team plans to meet again soon to do more work on the in-town trails plan. In the meantime, some team members including Good, will head to Colorado for a Trails for Economic Development Summit, while several others who have been actively involved in the group's efforts will focus on bring the representatives of the Rural Partner initiative up to speed on Lincoln's progress.