The City of Gillette has a lot planned for the next few years, and the local government is asking residents for guidance. An online survey will be available for residents of Gillette until November 15, and City Councilor Heidi Gross says they want to hear the direction the community wants to grow.
“We are in the middle of conducting a comprehensive land use project right now, and we have the City of Gillette that has not done that for quite a few years. So we want to update that. And there's a lot that goes into that,” said Gross.
In response to population growth and a changing economy, the city of Gillette is working with Kendig Keast Collaborative, a consultancy group specializing in city planning that will work with Gillette and the newly formed Citizens Advisory Council to outline a vision of the future.
The survey comes after a recent goal-setting session held by the city council, according to Gross. The purpose of the session is to bring city administrators and the public up to speed on more near-term projects. Some of those are ongoing investments like street maintenance and pothole repair. Others are larger in scope, like the repairing of a wastewater treatment plant, replacing aging infrastructure like the Gurley overpass and improving the local baseball fields. The city council is also interested in addressing homelessness through affordable housing.
“We'll be working on multiple items, all at one time. They're all things that we want to accomplish, and hopefully, we'll be able to get most of them accomplished fairly soon” said Gross.
The city council encourages members of the community to take the survey and participate in the future of their town.
“The more information and the more feedback we get from our citizens, that just helps inform our decisions that we make on city council and we are there to represent all of the citizens of Gillette so everybody's opinion matters.” said Gross.
