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The second big stakeholder meeting for the Greater Downtown Master Plan is set for Wednesday evening. This is the meeting at which we can expect to see exactly how our general suggestions at the first stakeholder meeting in March have been translated into specific ideas.

Specific, but not set in stone. The idea behind this second public meeting is to gather feedback from the community - both inside and outside of the immediate downtown area - on more than a dozen different subjects. George Crandall and Don Arambula, principals at the Portland, Ore.-based consulting firm that is handling the planning process, will be in town for the next three days to collect that feedback.

A few days before he was expected to arrive in Missoula, Crandall told the Missoulian's editorial board in a short telephone interview that, “We have developed a number of possible ways to respond to the public's issues and concerns that they identified in that first workshop.”

This second workshop, he said, will closely resemble the first. In case you weren't one of the more than 150 people who attended that meeting, here's how it works:

Crandall and Arambula will give a presentation, including a slide show, outlining the results of the first workshop, then ask the crowd to break up into groups of six to eight people. Each group will set at its own table and discuss each of the draft goals, then provide a summary of their discussion. Each participant will also be asked to fill out a ballot with their individual responses.

Crandall is hoping that turnout for this second event will be even greater than at the first. The more information his firm can collect, the more valuable that feedback is, he explained.

And since the deadline for the final master plan report is in November, they want to get cracking.

The report is being paid for with funds raised from the Downtown Business Improvement District, Missoula Downtown Association, Missoula Area Economic Development Corp., Missoula Parking Commission and the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, and is meant to steer the future of downtown Missoula for the next 20 years. It therefore covers a wide array of interests, from investment and development to parking and public events.

So if you haven't offered up comments before, we strongly encourage you to provide them Wednesday at the big public workshop.

After all, as Crandall put it: “In the end, it is about the people of Missoula. It is their plan.”

Have your say

The second public workshop of the downtown master planning process takes place Wednesday from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Downtown at the Park, 200 S. Pattee Street.

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