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Laurium has begun the task of updating the village’s recreation plan. The last time the village updated the recreation plan was in the late 1990’s. Village Manager Ian Lewis says that creating a new version of the village’s recreation plan will help Laurium gain access to critical funding sources such as the Michigan DNR.
“And so our goal here as the Planning Commission, Council, and administration is to try and figure out ways that we don’t have to increase taxes on our residents for recreation, we don’t have to raise rates anymore and that involves a lot of grant writing, the only way for us to be awarded those grants are through getting a parks and recreation plan going again.” – Ian Lewis, Village Manager, Village of Laurium
During February the village collected more than 100 survey responses from residents sharing various ideas for recreational desires, and providing village leadership with key insight into what residents want to see in the future. Recreational plans for villages, townships, and cities in Michigan are important local documents that help guide future leadership decisions and set goals for recreational developments and programs.
“The visioning session, this is the first visioning session. So we’re hoping more people will show up and give us more detailed responses. And then we plan on doing probably another survey to kind of start seeing what areas should be the first focus point. And then from there, we’ll probably have at least one or two more sessions for a time timeline. Hopefully, we can get a parks and rec plan done by the end of August.” – Ian Lewis, Village Manager, Village of Laurium
The village of Laurium hopes to continue providing public input opportunities as work progresses on a recreation plan. Tonight’s visioning session will review some of the initial survey responses and inform residents of the village’s process for updating the recreation plan. Laurium hopes to pass an updated recreation plan in time to access MDNR funding in 2025.
Those interested in attending the meeting will join us at the village of Laurium Hall at 310 Hecla Street starting at 6 pm.
