City planner finds plenty to do

    I have enjoyed my first few months here in Presque Isle working with Ken Arndt, our Department of Planning and Development Director, and the rest of the “P&D” team at City Hall.  I moved up here from a Senior Planner position in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts, and so in my free time I have also been enjoying the apparently never-ending cross country ski season that came with the new job! I look forward to getting to know more of the many volunteers and concerned citizens involved with land use decision making in the city, as time goes by.
    One project I am working on is a Maine Investment Trust Fund grant application for review and selection by the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD). In this column I will provide some background on that application, and a few words on the status of the Presque Isle Downtown Revitalization Committee (PIDRC) whose recommendations have been sought by the City Council regarding any downtown improvements for which grant funding will be requested.
    The PIDRC Board of Directors was appointed by the City Council only this month, but the group has in fact been up and running as an “Ad hoc” committee since early 2006, most recently appearing in the public eye with this winter’s Christmas decorations on Main Street. The recent, formal charge of duties from the City Council is a major plus factor for grant program eligibility, in that it helps ensure that the City Council’s goals and directives, as well as other forms of public participation, will continue to guide PIDRC’s efforts going forward. The group’s new bylaws provide a structure that has produced tangible results elsewhere in the state (north and south of us), following the model of the nationally recognized Main Street Maine program. Significantly, this program has also been successful in sparking the interest and involvement of community members who for any reason may not have stepped forward to voice their opinions or lend a hand previously.
    The improvements for which funding assistance is being sought through the Maine Investment Trust Fund grant application have been outlined in the Downtown Master Plan by the James W. Sewall Company which was previewed at the City Council’s regular meeting of April 7, 2008. Two key goals of the Downtown Master Plan are increasing parking and providing better linkages to parking within a comprehensive, safe pedestrian network. Overall, the emphasis is on restoring the understanding, which many of the County’s older residents can share with us first hand, that public space on Main Street can and should be a destination in and of itself, a premier place to go to enjoy our community — a place to go to be inspired.
    In addition to pursuing funding sources and otherwise supporting the PIDRC’s efforts, I will be assisting them in establishing priorities in a manner consistent with the city’s new planning tools, which include not only the soon-to-be-released 2008 Downtown Master Plan, but also the Comprehensive Plan adopted by City Council in fall of 2007. Along with the important work of responding to the day to day concerns of downtown employers, employees and visitors, the big picture objective for the PIDRC is the implementation of a broad range of improvements downtown, as set forth in both of these new plans.
    James P. Francomano is a City Planner with Presque Isle’s Department of Planning and Development. He can be reached at 764-2504 or online at
jfrancomano@presqueisleme.us.