BSC gearing up for busy summer

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

For a subcommittee, the Bigfork Steering Committee certainly has a lot of subcommittees.

The BSC's Resort Tax, Vision and North Lake County Planning committees as well as the (non-BSC affiliated) Stormwater Committee are all getting set for summer and moving forward with their missions.

The North Lake County Planning subcommittee is hustling in an attempt to get draft regulations drawn up before a series of proposed summer public meetings, according to chair Leslie Budowitz. Even if regs aren't drawn up in time for the summer rush, Budowitz said more scoping meetings would be held to get feedback.

As part of the process required to create a zoning district, she said an inventory needs to be taken of the current land use of more than 1,800 lots. That process was undergone by Bigfork in 1992 in preparation for the village's original neighborhood plan.

The resort tax subcommittee, meanwhile is planning to present a Power Point to BSC and BLUAC in the coming weeks outlining their findings. No date for the presentation has been set. The resort tax committee was tasked with exploring, not advocating, the possibility of implementing a resort tax in Bigfork as a means of raising money for community projects and needs.

The Stormwater committee held a public meeting Tuesday night at United Methodist Church in Bigfork with the engineering form Morrison Meirle to present and discuss the results of that firm's preliminary engineering report. That report inventoried Bigfork's current stormwater system and was the first step to obtaining other grants to move the project along. The committee — and the overall stormwater project — is the first of its kind in this part of Montana, according to chair Sue Hanson, and is being watched closely by both the institutions providing grants as well as other communities.

The BSC's next meeting is today, April 3, at noon in the basement of Bethany Lutheran Church.