The city has scheduled the next visioning sessions! Visioning is a process by which a community forms a mental picture of the future it wants. This includes working together to recognize shared values and defining what makes Whitefish special and how to protect valuable assets.

The city will be holding four visioning sessions in different locations. These sessions will ask participants to identify distinctive areas of the city, tell us what is special about your neighborhood and specific geographic areas and discuss issues and opportunities.

We ask that you choose ONE of the four sessions based on the particular area in which you live. A flyer with a map indicating the areas is located HERE.

Dates and locations of next visioning sessions:

• April 25, Grouse Mountain Lodge, 2 Fairway Dr
• May 9, Whitefish Armory, 315 Armory Rd
• May 23, Whitefish High School Cafeteria, 1143 E. 4th St
• June 13, Whitefish Methodist Church, 1150 Wisconsin Ave

All sessions will begin at 6PM.

The Vision Whitefish 2045 team has been trying to get people involved with this growth policy update that might not typically be involved. In particular, we have been reaching out to our younger residents, as some of them may be tomorrow's leaders and using the growth policy that shapes the future of their city.

You may remember we had coordinated with the Political Science Department at Whitefish High School to use the growth policy as a Senior Project. Some of these projects were presented by the students at a January 18, 2024 Community Development Board work session.

We are pleased to announce Claire Kniveton's Whitefish High School Art Class used growth policy topics for one of their art projects! Students beautifully depicted their visions for the City of Whitefish in 2045 and provided descriptions of their work. Some of these works are on display at City Hall on the second floor near the Council Chambers. Staff invites you to drop by and see how great these are. We hope at least a few of these drawings will find their way into the final growth policy.

Thank you to everyone who showed up to the first visioning sessions. Staff counted at least 110 participants, with slightly more than 50 people present at each session. These first sessions included online polling, mapping exercises, and group discussion questions. Most of the exercises that occurred at the sessions were made available for online participation on this website. Staff has compiled the results on the Vision Whitefish 2045 website in the "Visioning" folder in the "Documents" section on the right hand side of the website.

The compilation of mapping exercises can be downloaded HERE.

The compilation of polling results, and online essays can be downloaded HERE.

A March 21, 2024 power point presentation to the Community Development Board discussing the results of the visioning sessions and the group discussion exercises can be downloaded HERE.

A video of the presentation is available HERE.

More information regarding visioning statement(s) will be released at a future date.

We had a great turnout for the first general visioning sessions of Vision Whitefish 2045! We counted 53 participants on February 21 and 57 on the 22nd!.

Staff gave a brief presentation about the growth policy update and what visioning is. Then as a warm-up, we engaged the attendees in some interactive polling exercises in which the results could be seen in real time. Then we broke the audience up into five groups for group exercises. The first part included mapping, the second half included group discussion questions.

If you were unable to attend, do not fret! We have provided these same exercises for you to complete at your convenience!

The mapping exercise is available here.

The group discussion questions are available here.

These will close on March 15, and all results will be posted sometime after that date. Please be patient, as we have a LOT of input to get through :)

Vision Whitefish 2045 Team

The new Community Development Board has scheduled the first Visioning Sessions.

Visioning is a process by which a community forms a mental picture of the future it wants. This includes working together to recognize shared values and defining what makes Whitefish special and how to protect valuable assets. These first visioning sessions will be a general discussion about community character, assets and opportunities and will include considering several questions and a mapping exercise to help guide the growth policy update process. This will be the first of many visioning sessions.

Staff does intend to bring specific visioning sessions out into the community when we start working on elements such as land use and housing. We have scheduled IDENTICAL SESSIONS for two different nights to provide more flexibility for attendees. These sessions will be at Whitefish City Hall at 5:30 PM ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21 AND THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22. Here is the flyer for the visioning sessions.

WE HAVE A NEW VISION WHITEFISH 2045 DESIGN! We received several very good submissions, but in the end, at their January 18, 2024 meeting the Community Development Board voted on a design provided by Genna Bartingale who lives right here in Whitefish! Congratulations Genna! Genna will receive a $250 gift card, memorialization and credit of the artwork in the Growth Policy and the website, a printed copy of the Growth Policy and a framed poster of the artwork. Here is the full sized design.

There will be a Community Development Board Work Session on Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 5PM.

Topics will include:

- Updates on the progress of the growth policy thus far.

- Discussion and selection of final growth policy cover artwork.

- Discussion of the visioning process and selection of new dates.

WHITEFISH HIGH SCHOOL VISION WHITEFISH 2045 PRESENTATIONS

Last Spring the Engage Whitefish Team began communicating with Whitefish High School to see how we could get tomorrow's leaders involved with the growth policy that will shape the future of their city. This culminated in Mr. Wes Webb's Political Science classes using Vision Whitefish 2045 as their Senior Project! City Staff made presentations to 5 different classes and attended class work days in September, and the students were to write senior papers offering ideas and persuasive arguments related to the growth policy. Several of the students will present their ideas to the Community Development Board at the beginning of the work session.

Mr. Webb discussing Vision Whitefish 2045 with one of the five classes using it as their senior project.

Thanks for all the participation in the surveys! The surveys have been closed. Staff received up to 250 responses, depending on which of the three surveys were used. Staff is still analyzing the results of these surveys, but they have been posted in a documents folder titled "Survey Results".

Here is the survey regarding what people value most about Whitefish.

Here is the survey regarding what people believe are the biggest challenges to Whitefish.

Here are the topics most important ranked in level of importance.

City of Whitefish Long Range Planner Alan Tiefenbach was invited to discuss the growth policy on the KGEZ morning show. You can listen to this interview here.

The workshops which were tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, November 29 and Thursday November 30 HAVE BEEN POSTPONED. Full details of this will be described in the upcoming November Newsletter.