Sidewalks, streetlights lead TIF suggestions

Sidewalks, streets and streetlights, those were the themes common to a public hearing last week on how the city should best spend its tax increment financing district funding.

The city has about $441,000 available to spend this year.

Two residents — Roger Newman and Dave Petersen spoke their thoughts in person at that hearing and three others wrote letters to the council.

Newman suggested a sidewalk from the end of Nucleus down Railroad Street and Petersen also suggested sidewalk and street light improvements in he city.

Councilmembers had ideas of their own. Councilman Darin Fisher suggested the city consider saving some of the funds in case a project came up.

Petersen also noted that eventually the city will have to do something about parking, as downtown continues to grow.

To that point councilman Mike Shepard suggested the city consider making some streets one-way, which would free up parking.

Other suggestions including improving broadband Internet in the city and doing a new city promotional video. The video that’s on the city’s website now is years old and dated.

Mayor Don Barnhart suggested the city take some of the funds and consider buying equipment to plow city sidewalks in the winter.

Right now it’s the businesses or landowner’s responsibility to plow the sidewalks and not all businesses plow them, or at least plow them in a timely manner. The result is sometimes there’s a mish-mash of conditions after a snow storm.

The council also considered possible spending more funds on 12th Avenue West near the Cedar Palace medical Center, particularly if a federal grant that could pay for part of the project falls through.

Council made no decisions on the allocating funds. City manager Susan Nicosia said she will calculate the various costs of projects in the coming weeks and council will ultimately make a decision early next year.

The Railroad Street sidewalk, for example, has long been talked about. The city was hoping to get a federal BUILD grant to pay for that, but it didn’t get one. As such, that project is in limbo.

Doing any work on Nucleus and the North Fork Road is expensive and requires more engineering because it’s a state highway, and as such, has to meet state Montana Department of Transportation road standards.

In other news:

• Council approved a conditional use permit for a drive-up micro bakery and coffee stand at the northwest corner of the Super 1 Foods parking lot.

The request was being made by Judy Morse. Nicosia noted that the planning board, in future meetings, would look at revising the city’s zoning regulations to take out the conditional use permit for the stands, as the city has numerous coffee stands nowadays.