Culminating two days of public input, city officials went into workshop mode after their regular business meeting last week. The conversation was about taking the next steps in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan that includes three specific site areas, City Beach, the downtown waterfront and Sandpoint sports complex (Travers, Centennial and Great Northern parks).

Besides city officials, on hand was Tom Diehl, consultant for GreenPlay, LLC the city’s chosen firm and a handful of civic-minded individuals.

“We haven’t made any decisions and we still want people’s input,” Diehl said. “We’re now at the point where we’re ready to draft a plan from a 50,000 foot view. We’re looking at the big picture.”

Besides the workshops, there were surveys sent out to 3,420 Sandpoint residents of which 551 were returned. There was also an open link survey on the city’s website that yielded 562 interested respondents whether or not they lived within city limits.

Diehl outlined four goals for this “work in progress” in a PowerPoint presentation:

“1. Provide integrated and comprehensive Parks and Recreation facilities to serve Sandpoint’s needs.” These needs would include being walkable, being environmentally sensitive, would address Americans with Disabilities Act and would include acquiring new parks, upgrading playgrounds and the skate park.

“We don’t want to come into the community and say, ‘do this, do that, do this,’” Diehl said. He said that he tries hard not to waste time with things that no one is interested in.

The second goal stated: “Support and improve recreation programs and services as an important component of Sandpoint. 3. Continue to improve organizational efficiencies; implement mission and vision; enhance, improve communication, and staff appropriately. And the fourth goal is to, “increase financial opportunities.” That would include researching funding options such as grants, private donations and user fees.

Council member Andy Groat asked if the plan included raising city taxes and said, “How many times do we go back to our constituents and ask for more?”

A woman in the audience concurred. She told council that her property taxes had increased 20 percent year over year. “I would like to see an objective clearly stated not to increase property taxes.”

Another participant questioned user fees, such as boat launch fees and fees to park vehicles. And an attendee asked about the possibility of the carousel being installed at City Beach and what that would cost in not only financial terms, but in having quiet green space at the public park.

Council member Deb Ruehle commented that the conceptual plan shows a lot of pavement and that she is concerned about paving close to the waterfront.

Another attendee asked whether or not there was an opportunity for collaboration with the city of Ponderay whose newly approved sales tax is to be appropriated for the “field of dreams.”

Diehl said that he wouldn’t recommend duplication but their goal is to look at “the need of fields within city limits. The question is could that facility meet Sandpoint’s needs?” In answer to other questions, he stressed that no decisions have been made that all of these plans are preliminary.

City Administrator, Jennifer Stapleton said that today it’s about our expectations within the matrix presented, “utilizing citizen’s workshops, surveys, best practices across cities, ADA requirements or trends we haven’t seen here. Whether we choose to accept recommendations will happen with input from council and the public.”

The next step is for Diehl to present a final draft with recommendations to the city in mid-February with final conceptual plans by March or April. Action item proposals should be ready for public input in March as well.

Parks and Recreation Director Kim Woodruff said that these plans should serve Sandpoint for the next 50 years. “This plan has been a dream of mine for a long time. I’m super excited.”