Listening Sessions: Building a Better broadwater
 | Author:
Nancy Marks
Nancy Marks: MT43 News Secretary and News Editor |
Listening Sessions for Building a Better Broadwater
Perhaps you missed your chance to voice your beef about living in the county. On the other hand, maybe you wanted to crow about how great it is to live here.
Last Wednesday and Thursday Broadwater Community Development Corporation (BCDC) John Hahn and Allison Kosto, MSU Extension agent hosted several government groups who facilitated residents from Townsend, Toston, Winston and Wheatland-Three Forks areas to voice the concerns of citizens living in these areas. The last community review was done in 2004.
University of Idaho associate professor Lorie Higgins, a twenty-year veteran of organizing community reviews, and several others led the sessions which wrapped up on Thursday night at the Methodist church. She said 112 participants gave their input from the various towns, including 25 Broadwater High School students and 20 teachers from the school. “The students were so engaged about their activities and how the community supports them for sports. The one request they had was for them to have better communication with the community,” she said.
People said they loved the friendliness in the small towns in the county. They loved the access to good medical care and especially pointed out the recent upgrade of Townsend’s downtown appearance.
Higgins noted what participants worry about: subdivision sprawl, a loss of essential services such as fire, law enforcement and emergency services, loss of agricultural land, water resources, adequate housing and the loss of small-town culture.
She summarized participants’ wants and wishes. “You are wishing for more motels and restaurants. Your students emphasized they did not want franchise services to come to Townsend. Everyone asked for good rural internet service and to increase emergency services, especially in the southern end of the county. Senior citizens would like to have a bus to take them back and forth to shop and to doctors’ appointments.”
County residents filled out the survey earlier this month. The data from the survey will be compiled along with that of the listening sessions. Higgins and others will return in 2023 to help government leaders, businesses, county nonprofits and citizens plan how to implement what people want for the county for the future.
In an interview, Higgins gave her background in community review and planning. She began in 2003 as an extension community development specialist in Moscow where she developed programs to help communities around the northwest region adapt to change. “In the beginning, we set up community groups with a set agenda to help them solve the problems we saw. Later we adopted the listening sessions, a different strategy pioneered by Wyoming Rural Partnership specialist Mary Randolph. The plan has worked so well it is used now all around the Northwest,” she explained.
If you missed your chance to participate in the survey, contact the MSU Extension Service at allison.kosto@montana.edu or call (406) 266-9242.
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PhotoCredit: Nancy Marks
Image 1 Caption: Left to right: Rebecca Meyers, Mt. Economics Dev. Assn.; Craig Vietz, BCDC; Vickie Rauser, City Council; Lorie Higgins, University of Idaho(UI); Marcie Miller, UI; Katherine Anderson, Montana Economic Development Corporation; John Hahn, BCDC; Allison Koston, MSU Extension; Becky Bey, KLJ Engineering, Makenzie Esplund, Three Forks Chamber of Commerce and Craig Erickson, Great Western Engineering.
