Lincoln fish pond plan to be revived, revisited

In March of 2015, Lincoln area Game Warden Ezra Schwalm was all set to move forward with an application to a Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks public fishing pond grant program.

Schwalm, who originally became aware of the program via a work e-mail, envisioned a community-driven project to bring a family-friendly fishing pond to Lincoln; a safe place where, ideally, kids could walk with their fishing poles. Schwalm sits on the Lincoln Park Board and felt at the time that Lambkin Park would be an ideal location for the pond, but was open to feedback and alternative proposals from the community.

He brought the idea before the community council, county commissioners, and local and county parks boards in the spring of 2015, and was preparing to move forward with a meeting to garner community feedback and support when he was asked by the County to table the project until the new Hooper Park bathrooms were installed. He agreed to the delay. At the time, no one foresaw the complications surrounding the “Hooper Pooper” project, which would cause renovations to drag on into 2018.

“I didn’t foresee that…when I made this agreement,” Schwalm said. “I brought it up at subsequent Park Board meetings and they were like ‘we know, we’re sorry, and we appreciate you holding off so that we can get this handled.’”

Now ready to revisit the project in 2019, Schwalm said he will have to retrace many of the steps he took back in 2015 to ensure approval.

“Unfortunately, I feel as if I’m going to have to start over, because it has been a while,” he said. “I’ll have to take those steps again, I feel, just to make sure we’re good.”

The grant application process requires the submission of a proposal outlining the community’s vision for the pond. This means that once a location has been established, the next step is to decide on the details then apply for the grant.

Schwalm hopes to retrace his steps quickly and, pending the continued support of the County Commissioner’s office and park boards, begin gaining momentum for the project within the community as soon as this spring, so that a grant proposal might be submitted before the 2020 deadline in February of that year.

“There just wasn’t enough time to get a proposal together for the February [2019] deadline,” he said. “So, my plan was to do that over the course of this year… to submit it for the February deadline next year. That’s my hope.”

The amount of funding provided by FWP would depend upon how much of the grant is allotted for use in Lincoln. If no other communities were to submit a proposal in 2020, Lincoln could receive the entirety of the funds.

“It’s not like the money is highly sought after for this grant, so the competition isn’t steep,” Schwalm said. “I think we have a pretty good chance of getting most of it…and the cost share part of this grant can be donated labor, donated materials…we don’t necessarily have to come up with, say, $10,000 somehow. It doesn’t have to be tangible money. If we get people involved…the actual money we’d have to come up with will be greatly reduced.”

Schwalm is enthusiastic about the pond’s chances, despite its tenure on the back burner, and hopes the community will rally behind the project and make it their own, with his continued backing. A meeting to gauge community support and concerns and discuss moving forward will be in the offing as soon as he has the green-light from the various organizations, he said. The meeting will be advertised in advance, and he hopes to see a good turnout.

“Hopefully it draws people in,” he said. “Like I said when I was doing this the first time, I don’t want it to be Ezra’s fishing pond, I want it to be the community fishing pond. I want them to decide.”