Niwot LID Adopts Strategic Plan
BY KIM GLASSCOCK
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Niwot Local Improvement District Advisory Board members adopted the first strategic plan for the group at the Dec. 6 meeting.

The LID’s strategic plan includes a mission and vision statement, guiding principles and value statements for how the group will operate. It also defines three LID funding categories: infrastructure, marketing and promotions, and economic development for the town.

The plan describes objectives for the use of funds in each of the categories, outlines how success will be measured and describes general parameters for the types of activities that can be considered for LID funding in each category.

Boulder County Commissioners have informally reviewed the strategic plan. Their only request was that the parking goals wording in the strategic plan include working “to ensure implementation of the parking study and strategic recommendations from the Transportation and Connectivity Plan” currently in draft form for Niwot. LID members agreed to make that change, contingent upon the final transportation plan being consistent with the current draft plan.

Defining economic development as a separate funding category is an important change, LID members agreed.
“This strategic plan is excellent progress,” said LID member Jim Eastman. “Adding economic development to our funding categories will also help us maintain economic vitality and attract new businesses to Niwot.”

“We have always focused on maintaining our infrastructure and marketing the town and its businesses and activities,” said LID member Tony Santelli. “But economic development is an important aspect of the LID’s mission, and now we have given it the emphasis it should have.”

The funding categories and guidelines also will help applicants determine if their requests are appropriate, the group agreed.
“There’s no denying that people see the LID as the ‘deep pockets’ for funding Niwot projects,” said LID member Euvaldo Valdez. “The guidelines will be very helpful for applicants and as we consider requests for funding.”
“It could also impose a new order on our conversations about funding requests,” added LID member Laura Skaggs.

LID members agreed that the LID’s request for funding form should be redesigned to reflect the new funding categories and guidelines.
In other business, Boulder County Commissioners liaison Pete Salas reported that the consultants drawing up the Niwot Transportation and Connectivity Plan received 95 online comments from members of the public about projects proposed in the draft report.

“They were amazed by the response,” Salas said.

The transportation study grew out of the work of the infrastructure work group. That group has asked the consultants to package their drawings for projects proposed for Niwot Road as a “complete street” project. “We would hate to do several projects piecemeal and then find that they do not integrate well,” said Skaggs, who also serves on the working group.

At the Dec. 6 meeting, LID members also approved $2,720 in funding for a sealer coat and anti-graffiti coating on the new Spirit of Niwot mural on the Excel Electric building on Murray Street.