Fwd: Bozeman Creek Steering Committe Meeting Report
Bogert Park Neighborhood Association
Bozeman Creek Steering Committee meeting report, 32211
Committee members present: Tammy Crone, Ron Dingman, Erik Garberg, Lynn Peterson-Maher, Peter Skidmore, Mike Vaughn. Staff: Gary Weiner. Guest: Dustin Johnson
Summary:
Committee members were favorably impressed with the turnout at the February 9th public workshop, the level of support, and the public’s knowledge of the breadth of issues and opportunities. The categories of “desired improvements” (geomorphology/habitat, water quality/flows, recreation/access, education/interpretation, and economic development) will provide the framework for our enhancement plan.
Based on these categories, Gary will write some draft goals and objectives for review at the next steering committee meeting. The committee then will begin to identify actions to accomplish these, and assign relative priorities, recognizing that we’ll want to remain flexible to take advantage of unforeseen opportunities.
Peter, Tammy, Gary, and other interested committee members will plan to spend a day in the field, when the weather turns nicer, to do a qualitative assessment of the entire creek through Bozeman. This could lead to the identification of zones, each with a specific enhancement focus.
Three areas were noted in the public comment where opposing ideas were expressed. The committee made these decisions: The project will focus on corridor enhancement and protection, rather than having a watershed-wide scope; Given the creek’s limitations, we probably can’t design or plan for boating or tubing opportunities (not to mean we’d recommend prohibiting these activities), and; We’ll work on the large, expensive projects concurrently with the smaller, more-easily accomplished projects.
The Downtown Bozeman Partnership has allocated money to contract for development of a plan to reconstruct the city parking lot at Babcock and Rouse. The RFP will call for reducing the number of parking spaces, widening the creek corridor (potentially reducing bank slopes, providing a floodplain bench, increasing sinuosity, and improving riparian vegetation), building a trail along the creek, and possibly closing the alley to all or most vehicle traffic. The alley would be converted into a pedestrian walkway connecting the new creekside trail to Soroptomist Park, and maybe to the north/south alley leading to Main Street, just west of the Nova Café. The DBA is also working on soliciting designs to replace the dilapidated iron railings on many of the bridges over Bozeman Creek downtown with attractive new ones labeled “Bozeman Creek”, with our project logo. Interpretive signage can be added later.
There is strong public and steering committee support for making improvements to Bozeman Creek along North Rouse in tandem with the MDT road reconstruction project. However, major improvements to the creek corridor likely would require the purchase of several additional properties, which may be financially and politically infeasible. Marginal improvement may be possible. Gary will make further inquiries.
Given strong public support, an early project at Bogert Park would make sense.
The project’s vision statement was modified to incorporate public comment.
The steering committee’s tentative mission statement is: “to develop a Bozeman Creek Enhancement Plan through a community-driven process, while working to identify and implement priority early-action projects”.
Ron will investigate the possibility of using the city Parks and Recreation Dept. website to regularly post information about the Bozeman Creek Enhancement Project, such as: upcoming meeting agenda, meeting reports, opinion surveys, documents and maps.
Steering committee meeting agendas and reports will be emailed to Bozeman planning and public works staff, commissioners, and a short list of other relevant parties. The growing list of interested parties (now at 80) can view these materials through the project website, and also will be directly informed of progress via quarterly newsletters and at significant milestones.
To gather additional public comment, Gary will look into converting the questionnaire to a (largely) multiple choice survey, to be posted on the website and otherwise distributed. There was a discussion over the value of conducting a survey in a statistically valid manner. Doing so would carry more weight politically, but likely would cost several thousand dollars.
We’ll continue to make public presentations to appropriate audiences, such as neighborhood associations. A mailing to all riverside landowners was discussed as a possibility.
The committee selected their preferred logo, and will work on developing a short slogan.
FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant program could be a good fit for this project, as it has been used for similar projects in the recent past (Livingston and Deer Lodge). We could score well if we can show a good benefit:cost ratio by reducing flood elevations and therefore flood risks. We would do this by de-channelizing the creek and providing floodplain benches. Bogert Park, the city parking lot, the parking lots between Main Street and City Hall, and Creekside Park are locations where this might be possible, given landowner approval and cooperation, and finding a 25% local match. The FEMA monies can be used to purchase property, reclaim land, and deal with utility lines.
Bogert Farmers Market has offered the steering committee the opportunity to man a booth promoting the project for one date this summer. We’d need to provide a kid’s activity, like drawing what they’d like to do on the creek at Bogert. A follow-up email will solicit volunteers.
The next steering committee meeting will be in April on a date to be determined
Allyson C. Bristor, AICP
Neighborhood Coordinator
PO Box 1230
Bozeman, MT 59771-1230
p: 406-582-2274
f: 406-582-2263