Main Street group moving forward with official recognition, projects

The Steering Committee for Montana Main Street Program met Monday and not only adopted a name for the group, but also made steps to move forward with its official status and future projects.

Hill County Community Foundation chair Pam Veis joined the committee's board, which comprises representatives from local businesses and organizations,

Veis said that HCCF was awarded $5,000 this summer by Montana Community Foundation to be paid out in grants toward the foundation's three focus areas, which are arts and culture, community beautification and basic human needs.

"We all agreed on our board that we want to collaborate with this group and we would like to put that toward something that this group finds as a priority," she said. "I believe that if Montana Community Foundation thinks everything is on the ups, and it's all good, there is another $5,000 coming our way. It's really great timing and couldn't be better for us."

Bear Paw Development Corp. Executive Director Paul Tuss provided a draft document that features the Steering Committee's answers to seven questions as part of the application process to become an affiliate member of Montana Main Street.

These seven questions are:

• What is your interest in becoming a Montana Main Street Affiliate community?

• What does your community intend to accomplish as an affiliate member of the Montana Main Street Program?

• Briefly list and describe any community downtown revitalization efforts and projects recently completed.

• Please list the three most important revitalization goals that your community aims to achieve over the next two years of the Montana Main Street Program.

• Please describe the level of interest in your community for this program. This should include an assessment of current/potential volunteer sources, as well as participation by local government, economic development organizations, downtown associations and chambers of commerce, cultural and historical organizations, small businesses, non-profits, etc. It is important to provide a detailed list of all interested community organizations. Statements/letters of support are strongly encouraged as part of this submittal.

• Please describe the general condition of your downtown buildings and their historical/cultural significance. Are there any listed on the National Register of Historic Places?

• Briefly explain how your community would employ the Main Street Center Four Point Approach in your downtown revitalization.

"I envision we can potentially have this in as quickly as the end of this week, maybe," Tuss said, adding that means receiving more letters of support from members of the community and local businesses and completing the application.

An important agenda item that was discussed and then adopted by the board was naming the group to Downtown Havre Matters.

"Maybe it's 'Matters!' with an exclamation point," Tuss said.

"That makes it sexy," board chair Steve Helmbrecht said, laughing. "It just adds a little spark."

"The matters of Havre, but also it's a verb, it does matter, so that's why I like it because it kind of has that dual building up word usage," Boyce & Berry Flowers owner Kimmi Boyce said.

"If you look back at the history of the Main Street group federal program, it was to revitalize downtown," Havre Historic Properties representative Erica Farmer said. "They knew because of the timing and ... they wanted to infuse money into keeping downtowns vital because they know when they look at the numbers - and they know when it comes to shopping and walkability and how happy people are, the livability and all of that - it's not just big box stores. Never has been. So if you look at that density in towns, it's like this is the happy zone to get money back in there."

In a discussion about what the group should do going forward Havre Mayor Tim Solomon said they need to continue doing projects and looking at what the downtown needs.

"I think you want to continue with the projects out there, keeping the committees going as part of your goal and don't let it die," he said. "We got it up and going, let's keep it alive and going and wait for, hopefully, that we get money to do a master plan and there will probably be a lot of input to do with that."

"I think our next step to keep some momentum going is I think we try to get some partners downtown, even if they aren't in the group, downtown businesses and say, 'Hey let's light up downtown for Christmas because we could do it right before Thanksgiving' and Steve (Helmbrecht) and I were talking about doing a contest or something," Farmer said. 

Farmer said she would love to see every single tree that downtown decorated whether there is power or not.

The next Downtown Havre Matters! board meeting will be held Tuesday, Nov. 12, at noon at Bear Paw Development Corp.