City holds final meeting on 2040 Comprehensive Plan
SILOAM SPRINGS — Siloam Springs city staff held their final community meeting May 19 at the Siloam Springs Public Library for the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Dawn Warrick — project manager for Freese and Nichols, the consulting firm assisting the city with the comprehensive plan — presented the audience with a PowerPoint presentation, which outlined the project from its beginning in early 2021 to its proposed conclusion in the next two months.
Approximately 50 people attended the meeting, which also included several boards for attendees to view the comprehensive plan and place sticky notes on the boards with comments and drafts of the comprehensive plan to read.
Warrick thanked the Siloam Springs community plus the Board of Directors, Planning Commission and city staff for their support as well as the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee.
Members of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee are Ben Bergstrom, Jerry Cavness, Brian Lamb, Sarah Losh, Mary Nolan, Katie Rennard, Chris Salley, Marla Sappington, Karina Tun, Jody Wiggins and Kevin Williams. Each member represented a segment of Siloam Springs’ population.
Warrick outlined the meeting objectives, which consisted of a project reminder, public safety summary, draft plan highlights, next steps, and discussion and a question-and-answer period. During the project reminder, Warrick went over each chapter of the framework.
The chapters are community snapshot; vision, guiding principles and goals; future land use; transportation and mobility; housing; economic development; resiliency; community character; public facilities and services; and implementation.
Along with the chapters, Warrick outlined the project schedule for the comprehensive plan which included two previous community meetings, online surveys, joint workshops with the city board and Planning Commission and five meetings of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee.
Following the presentations attendees gravitated to the boards and to a table with the draft copies of the comprehensive plan. The attendees spoke to Warrick as well as Community Development Director Don Clark and Senior Planner Ben Rhoads.
Warrick was happy with the meeting’s outcome, she said.
“I’m loving tonight,” Warrick said. “People seemed really engaged and asking good questions.”
Williams was also positive about the evening’s experience. Williams said he loves planning for the future and that people needed to keep that in mind when critiquing the plan.
“It’s not planning for us,” Williams said. ” It’s planning for our kids and grandkids.”