Potential community projects to go on display

After months of work, a citizens' committee is ready to roll out its analysis of potential community projects.

As the result of a town hall meeting concerning the announcement from the City of Sisters about a proposed amphitheater project in February 2014, the Community Assets Committee (CAC) was charged with analyzing four potential projects that received the most votes from those in attendance at that meeting. The committee was asked to describe how each idea might look in Sisters, get feedback about their results from the public, incorporate that feedback and then present the results to city council for further consideration.

The CAC has now completed its initial analysis of those projects and is preparing to present its findings to the public for feedback at another town hall meeting next month.

The 11 members who contributed to the analyses and discussions include Matt Cyrus, Caprielle Foote-Lewis, Liam Hughes, Wendy Holzman, Marshall Jackson, Jerry Norquist, Ann Richardson, Bruce Rognlien, Bill Willitts, McKibben Womack and chairman Bill Hall. The four projects vetted by the committee include an indoor sports arena, an ice rink, a conference center, and an art/science/history center.

The committee has not taken a position on any one project and is allowing the process to unfold impartially.

The next step could be appointing another citizens committee to delve further into the specifics and numbers of any project judged worthy of additional consideration. People with relevant skills would be needed on such a committee.

Councilor Holzman has been present at every meeting and has kept council informed of the committee's progress. A joint CAC/city council workshop was held in January to update new councilors.

Bill Hall is the creator of the process for vetting each project, providing thorough ways of looking at an idea and creating a consistent scheme so they can be compared on a level playing field. A goal of the committee is to leave the community a thorough and accurate process for reviewing such future ideas.

The committee put together a PowerPoint presentation describing each of the projects. Earlier this month, Hall and Hughes presented it to Kiwanis and Rotary Club members to receive some public comment prior to the town hall presentation. It included pictures of similar facilities, strengths and weaknesses, feasible size of structures, fit for stakeholders, impact on town and potential cost per $100,000 if a bond needed to be floated to fund a project.

This committee isn't looking into final costs or ownership or taxing boundaries or financing, which could be city, parks and recreation, private, nonprofit, some combination or a corporate sponsor, and there is potentially grant money to look into - so the numbers provided are just to give some perspective. The committee has also not recommended any location, leaving that to a future detailed project analysis if it is decided to continue reviewing any project.

The town hall meeting will be held at FivePine Lodge & Conference Center on April 26, from 4 to 6 p.m. Each project will have its own table with ongoing displays that explain the projects graphically and members of the CAC will be available to answer questions about the individual projects and the process used for analyzing them.

A survey was created to get as many opinions about what the people of Sisters Country might want or not want in the way of a community asset - or none at all. Paper surveys will be available at the FivePine presentation, at city hall, and online soon (watch The Nugget Announcements; listen to KZSO 94.9 FM).

Free refreshments and beverages will be available courtesy of Aspen Lakes, The Depot Café, FivePine and the Sisters High School culinary class.