Last month, the city of Great Falls launched a “Future Great Falls” website.
“You can go to that website and learn what the growth policy is,” said Brock Cherry, Great Falls’ planning and community development director.
Cherry said that 100 people have already signed up, but he hopes for even more community involvement: "We still have room for a lot of improvement."
Last month, associate planner for the City of Great Falls Alaina Mattimiro said, “We want everybody and anybody that is related to Great Falls to be able to participate. So that is you, your friends, your family, your grandparents, your kids, your coworkers. If you live on base, we want you, if you live in Cascade County but work in Great Falls or shop in Great Falls, all of those people we want feedback from. This is going to be the best public engagement effort in the city's history, and it's happening right now. So we're very excited about it”.
To fuel public engagement, Cherry is helping plan a major outreach program once the holidays wrap up.
“The week of Janurary 27th, we're actually going to have our consulting team come out here,” Cherry said.
It is important to emphasize that the growth policy affects everyone in Great Falls, especially the Great Falls Public Schools.
“It allows us to come to the table with our city leaders and really look at the plans for what our future could look like in Great Falls,” said Heather Hoyer, GFPS Superintendent.
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Hoyer says the growth policy allows schools to be forward thinking and solution based about the future, and the website is a great way to foster engagement.
“I would encourage people to take a look at that website, get involved,” Hoyer said.
The variety of voices will help focus the growth of Great Falls, pointing the growth policy in the right direction.
“Any time we get more voices coming forward and talking about growth policy, that benefits Great Falls and it benefits our community,” Hoyer said.
“We really want to ensure that we're telling the story of how and why does this affect you,” Cherry said.
If you want to stay up to date on the project process and make sure your voice is heard, click here.
