Survey Results:
132 people responded to our survey! Thank you to all who participated. This helps us develop a good understanding of what this community values the most. Here is how those community values were ranked by all of you:
Environment & sustainability
Public Safety
Developing the creative economy
Inclusion (tied with culture & identity)
Culture & identity (tied with inclusion)
Positive youth development
Collaboration
While positive youth development and collaboration ranked at the bottom, it doesn't mean those values aren't important. As we move forward with developing our district, prioritizing our goals and plans, collaboration will be a natural part of the process, and inclusion means everybody, so positive youth development won't be left out.
To see the full survey results and all of the public comments, click on the button below. Please note, we have edited some public comments in an attempt to protect personal information.
Meeting Recap & Planning Process Status
The majority of our meeting was spent sharing and talking about the survey results. Discussion followed about where we are in the process and our plans for the next phase.
Community Calendar - our community calendar, funded by Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee, is getting up and running now. The purpose of the calendar is to give local organizations a place to publish community festivals, arts & entertainment events, and public meetings (e.g. city council). When scheduling future events, the calendar can help organizers avoid conflicts with other events already scheduled. Organizations invited to utilize the calendar include:
Chamber of Commerce
City of Soap lake
Community and Senior Center
Fire District #7
Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee (FLGC)
Masquers Theater
Soap Lake NCW Library
Soap Lake Prevention Coalition
Soap Lake Schools
All of these organizations are welcome to use the calendar for publishing their events. Those organizations or businesses who aren't on this list, but are hosting public events, may ask FLGC or one of the other organizations to publish an event on their behalf. Access to the calendar will be free to the public.
The Soap Lake Economic Development Committee will share the new community calendar at an event that is planned to take place in January. Stay tuned!
Next Phase - ArtsWA asks communities to complete a toolkit consisting of a number of exercises that provide a framework for building a creative district program. We are at the end of the initial "Setting the Groundwork" phase of this process. The results of this work are being reviewed now and will be made available to the public before the end of this year. In the meantime, anyone can see the toolkit (sans answers) at the ArtsWA website: https://www.arts.wa.gov/community-readiness-toolkit/.
We're now starting on the "District Development and Promotion" phase. Exercises in this second phase will involve looking back at our earlier work to clarify areas, and fill gaps where necessary. In this section we'll take a deeper dive into planning which includes understanding and developing community assets, reaching underserved communities, branding, promotion and preparing to focus on creative economic activities.
A "working group" approach will be taken to complete each of the toolkit exercises. There will be subcommittees meeting and convening on their own. We'll reach out to community members asking for their participation. There will be fewer public meetings, while at the same time, we'll maintain open communication with the public via the city newsletter, social media and some email. This is our schedule:
December - no public meeting
January 18 - public meeting at the Community and Senior Center
February - no public meeting
March - public meeting - day and location to be determined
One small way everyone can help is to share this communication with your friends and neighbors, especially those who don't have access to the internet. Email us anytime if you have questions at creative.district@couleefriends.org.