PROGRESS: Ponderay: A little city with a big future

First, we would like to thank our community for showing Trust in their local City government by passing the local option tax this past November. Our community supported this tax with approximately 75% approval.

We will now be able to continue on with developments at the Field of Dreams, which the next phases could include a permanent location for a full-size ice arena. We are also looking to add baseball fields and continued infrastructure improvements.

We will also continue improvements at the Harbison Field, where the lakeshore access will be located. This is a major project that will include a tunnel under the railroad to access the Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail. Our city has submitted for a grant for this project which includes access off of Highway 200 to a parking area and then to a walking trail to access the lake.

Thanks to our voters we will now be able to continue on with these two amazing assets for our community.

I also want to mention that we are committing $500,000 a year to roads and infrastructure improvements in our city out of the local option tax.

We have also committed to taking the first $1 million received from the local option tax and putting it into an endowment fund for the maintenance of the Field of Dreams complex. We will also add all of the interest earned from the local option tax to be added to the endowment fund so that at the end of the 10-year mark we should have a total of $2 million in that fund for continued maintenance of our recreational facility.

This past winter season our ice rink was another huge hit for the community. We had over 12,000 skaters and we did over 30 school field trips this year. We also thanks to North Idaho Ice have our first hockey league in the county.

We’ve also received many letters of appreciation from the community supporting the Ice Rink and soccer fields at the Field of Dreams.

On another really exciting note, our city after many years finally has the approval to begin the work of cleaning up the site known as the Black Rock. Our city received a grant quite a few years ago for this project and we will finally see this project completed hopefully by this coming fall. The work includes cleaning up the areas that were contaminated during the early 1900s when the smelter operation was going on.

As far as road improvements last year, we completed the McNearney Road project up to the Field of Dreams and then out to U.S. 95 on Oneida Way. We completed Schweitzer Plaza extension, which now connects the Larkspur area to Triangle Drive. we also completed repaving Piehl Road.

I should also mention that last May, our city had a bed tax renewal on the ballot that passed approving a 10% tax to all motel rooms within our city. These funds help fund the SPOT bus in our community along with safety improvements within our city.

Every June we do an annual City cleanup day. This program has helped many within our community with certain tasks that they may need a hand with. I’d like to Thank all of the community who support this project especially the Church of Nazarene that has come out in full force every year for over a decade to help clean up around our city.

Our city also hosts the Ponderay Neighbor Day event every fall at the Harbison Field, and also my favorite event of the year the Santa Sack Project which gives gifts and small items to around 400 children and seniors within our community.

I’ve got to say being the mayor of our city has been an experience of a lifetime. It’s truly been unbelievable to see the generosity of how many people that come out and support our community by giving their time or money to support some of the programs our city has started.

I would also like to make a statement that we here at the city of Ponderay really like hearing from our community members. We would love to see more of you attend your city council meetings as we typically have one to two people on average that show up for the meetings. We want to hear what you think, and we appreciate your input when you do come so please mark your calendars for the first and third Mondays of every month at 5:30 p.m. and come and attend a meeting once in a while.

Lastly, I want to thank our amazing city staff at the City Hall and Ponderay Police Department for always being there to help our community. They are all true professionals that put our community first and I can’t thank them enough. 

Steve Geiger is the mayor of Ponderay.