'Listening' report details concerns

SANDPOINT — A report covering Bonner County residents’ viewpoints on a host of topics ranging from growth management and water quality to the opioid epidemic and affordable housing is available for viewing online and local libraries.

The 58-page Listening to Bonner County report was prepared by students from the University of Utah’s Department of City & Metropolitan Planning in Salt Lake and funded through a grant obtained by Project 7B, a nonpartisan group which seeks to increase public engagement with local land use planning. Students conducted a series of listening sessions last fall in Sandpoint, Ponderay, Priest River, Priest Lake and Blanchard to gather public input. Surveys were also conducted online.

“It reflects what the students heard about the characters, values, challenges and goals expressed by Bonner County residents,” Dan Shlaferman, chair of Project 7B’s steering committee, told county commissioners on Tuesday.

Fellow steering committee member Carol Curtis said the students sought to obtain points of view from a broad segment of the county’s demographics.

“We surveyed people to try and get a cross section,” said Curtis

Commissioners received the report without commenting on it.

Growth management, housing costs, open space preservation and future water quality were among the topics that survey respondents cared about.

“Future water quality was considered the second-most pressing issue — roughly 90 percent of those who filled out the survey thought it to be either important or extremely important to them. Air quality was also a concern,” the report states.

The report also touched upon the deepening divide between residents in urbanized areas and those in rural areas.

Approximately 58 percent of rural respondents believe their values do not align with urban residents, and 53 percent of urban residents believe their values do not align with rural residents. Both urban and rural residents feel misunderstood by those living in different types of communities, according to the report.

“We believe that bridging the rural/urban divide should be encouraged to create social cohesion and to improve economic conditions among regional communities. For this to happen there needs to be a clear understanding of the differences and similarities between the two community types, and work to establish a path to find common ground,” the report said.

The report also offers short-, medium- and long-term opportunities identified in the report. They include facilitated community discussions and creating frameworks for protecting water quality and identifying areas of the county which are of importance or concern.

“It’s not to tell us what to do. It’s to foster dialogue,” said Curtis

Read the report at listeningtobonnercounty.org