Farmington Seeks Public Input For City’s Future

FARMINGTON — The city of Farmington is asking local citizens to drop by City Hall from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 2, to give their input on how they want the community to look in the future.

Officials with Farmington City Council, Farmington Planning Commission and city staff have held two brainstorming sessions to work on a strategic plan to guide the city for the next five to 10 years.

Teresa Ray with Focused On F.A.C.T.S., LLC (Fueling Advantage by Challenging Talent for Success) is facilitating the strategic planning sessions and has helped Farmington with planning in the past. Farmington is paying Ray $500 per session for her services.

“I think it’s always good to get city leaders together to focus on what’s important,” Ray said. “Then we want to get citizens together to see if anything was missed.”

Leaders in the first session offered their top choices for what they would like to see in Farmington. This expansive list was then divided into categories. No decisions were made.

The top items mentioned by city staff and officials were

improvements to Creekside Park, a town or city center, trails and trail connections, beautifying Main Street, codification of ordinances and a water park or splash pad for Farmington.

Other needs written down were more police officers and firefighters, expanding the police department building and library, a city festival, a public works building, a full-time mayor, widening Highway 170, resurface and widen streets, a dog park, design standards for muilt-family complexes, a parking ordinance and extending sewer to the west.

Some of these issues already are in process. The city has plans to improve Creekside Park and construct a new public works building. An architect is working on design plans to expand the police department and library. A plan to widen Highway 170 also is in the process with the Arkansas Transportation Department.

Two items, a full-time mayor and codification of city ordinances, could be accomplished with a few steps.

To make the mayor’s position full time, the City Council would have to designate it as a full-time position with full-time pay. To codify ordinances, which means to make them available all in one place for the public, the City Council could ask the City Attorney to complete the codification of ordinances.

The following items from the first meeting will be placed out for public input at the June 2 community meeting: a town/city center, trails and trail connections, beautify Main Street, water park or splash pad, city festival, new businesses, dog park, community center for teenagers, industrial park, expand the library, widen streets/ resurface and soccer fields.

Ray said posters will be spread around the room at City Hall and citizens are asked to put down their comments about ideas on the posters.

“We’re open to thoughts,” Ray said.

Other posters will allow residents to write down if they are interested in serving on a city committee, such as streets, parks and recreation, grants and economic development. Citizens also will be able to write down any other ideas they would like to see Farmington have in the future.

Ray will take this information and present it at the next city strategic planning meeting. Some jobs will be assigned to the committees and others will go back to the City Council so that it can decide a priority order for the tasks.

City leaders also will be at the meeting to answer questions and listen to comments from citizens. their