20/20 Cold Spring Vision Team

February 22, 2005 at St. Joseph Meeting Grounds

Minutes
Gathering of Regional HCPs
February 22, 2005 at St. Joseph Meeting Grounds

Attendance:
St. Joseph HCP: Mary Niedenfuer, Ernie Diedrich
Avon HCP: Becky Schmitz; Chris Panek
Cold Spring HCP (20/20 Vision Team): Duane Kuss
SJU Intern: John Kamman

This meeting was organized in order to investigate opportunities for collaboration among HCPs in the region. It’s a good idea to get to know each other and to see what we can learn from each other as how we might help each other through joint projects or grant applications.

We briefly discussed how each HCP developed and what the major issues were in their communities.

1. Avon HCP
Avon’s HCO started off with a visioning meeting that drew 200 people (The Minnesota Design Team (MDT) visited several years ago). Only a few have been trained with the Initiative Foundation and about 45 people are now active in the following four committees:

1. Main Street Restoration…e.g., re-tarring main street
2. Community Center…focus on raising funds to build one
3. Land Use…issues deal with new housing developments
4. Economic Development…how to keep the town economically vital

Key issues in the community are the current discussions about locating a Supervalue store where the old baseball field is and relocating the ball field elsewhere. One obstacle may be that people are reluctant to pay more taxes owing to the relatively recent building of a waste-water treatment facility.

2. 20/20 Vision Team (Cold Spring HCP)
Cold Spring’s efforts began a year ago and the town meeting (about 150 people) coincided with the MDT visit there in June, 2004. There are now 30-40 active members split up into the following organizations:

1. Parks and Recreation…organizing a trail network with Rockville HCP…signage…sliding hill
2. Tourism…developing welcoming informational kiosk…developing Lookout Park…Chain of Lakes brochure
3. Arts and Culture…organizing a community band
4. Design Standards Team… granite pillars and use of granite on some buildings…update zoning standards
5. Land Use Group…update city comprehensive plan
6. Social Issues…coordinate social groups

3. St. Joseph HCP
St. Joseph’s HCP was formed at least six years ago, but was functioning as a community development group at least a year earlier (helped by the Minnesota Project). Started as a formal group (ca. 40 people) with televised meetings and lots of committees (establishing a new school (e.g., high school), public transportation to St. Cloud, Farmers’ Market, Community Center, Spring Festival), but now focus on a few priorities (Annual festival (e.g., focus on senior citizens, bicycling, history), tree planting, Bicycle-Friendly Community, coordination with other groups). Our membership now varies from 15 to 25 depending on the project.
Common Threads
Common themes such as recreation, parks, traffic, etc. mean that we could undertake some joint efforts. One that Dave suggested is a regional hiking/biking trail network. Another is a web site with HCP descriptions and updates on it. Having some sort of social function (having fun!) would be useful. Finally, Ernie suggested applying for grants that would fund joint projects.
Also, it would be helpful for all three HCPs to sponsor (without money) the Avon Hills Initiative Conference on April 9th…maybe with each HCP setting up a poster describing membership, committees, successes, failures and main impediments/breakthroughs.
We agreed to meet again at the April 9th conference if not earlier.

Respectfully submitted,

Ernie Diedrich