By Michael Howell
To kick off the new year, members of the Hamilton City Council brainstormed potential goals for the coming year at a Committee of the Whole meeting last week. A number of ideas surfaced including potentially getting involved in a recycling effort, developing a policy or possibly an ordinance addressing homelessness and possibly panhandling, the placement of art in public spaces, developing plans for a few of the city parks that don’t have plans, and proceeding with the annexation of wholly surrounded properties within the city limits.
No priorities were set but some discussion was held on each goal.
Council President Jenny West suggested that the Town of Stevensville’s arrangement with Ravalli Recycling to have a 24/7 recycling bin placed in the Burnt Fork Market’s parking lot might be a model worth considering.
In terms of dealing with homelessness, Deputy Administrator Jamie Guisinger noted that she had discovered a “magic number,” the phone number 2-1-1. She said anybody living in Ravalli, Mineral, and Missoula Counties can pick up a phone and dial 2-1-1 and get a live person on the phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week who will assess the caller’s needs including temporary shelter, transportation, work, housing, or electric utility bills and get them connected with the appropriate agency or entity who can help them out.
As far as placement of public art, Special Projects Director Dennis Stranger said that the City was currently involved with re-writing some of the zoning regulations and that would be a good place to put provisions governing the placement of public art. Although it is not exactly art, Doug McLaren, who serves on the Bitterroot Valley Board of Realtors Quality of Life Committee, recently succeeded in getting a grant from the National Association of Realtors to place three benches on Main Street.
In a discussion about incentives to get people to move into the city by making it more attractive, it was noted that there is a tax break for five years for remodeling a downtown building. But it has to be a substantial remodel. The remodel costs have to be a certain percentage of the commercial value of the property. No one knew the exact percentage number.
Regarding the annexation of wholly surrounded property, according to Stranger, when he started as Special Projects Director there were 13 or 14 wholly surrounded properties. Since then, he said, half have been annexed. He said an analysis was done on the potential infrastructure costs that would be involved in each case, but the figures would be dated.
Nothing was referred to the Council.