Vision 2020 hopes for action in 2006

Group sees bright outlook for new year

MOSES LAKE — Upcoming action on a few projects is leaving a bright outlook for the new year for one local citizens group.

Alan Heroux, the incoming chairman of citizen group Vision 2020, hopes to see downtown redevelopment and other items on the group's plate come to fruition next year.

"Hopefully we can get into the action portion of things at this point," he said.

Heroux replaces Jacie Daschel, who has been at the helm of the organization since mid-2004. In the last year the group has been working with the city on downtown plans, and a number of other projects its members hope will lead to a more prosperous Moses Lake.

The projects Vision 2020 has been working on have not been high-visibility projects, Heroux said, but much work has been done in the planning and funding stages in preparation for action.

The item that tops the group's project list right now: Downtown. The revitalization project is one both Vision 2020 and the city are behind, and one Heroux said his group feels can get done this year. In the past few years, Daschel said the group has made some great progress, particularly on downtown, and pointed to money allocated by the city of Moses Lake for downtown revitalization next year. Downtown had been talked about in the early 1980s, but Daschel said unlike the 1980s, this time those improvements will happen.

"It's the place to start," Daschel said of downtown. "You work from inside out."

To get those people from the outside, the group is also working on a signage program with a focus to try and get people to downtown entrances from the interstate with consistent signs.

Heroux said work is being done on a few different committees to try and get those better directional signs so people can get where they need to go in town.

In addition to downtown and a push for better directional signage, Heroux said the group has a long-term desire to get some work done to beautify the exits of Interstate 90 into town. That improvement is not as a high on the priority list with the state Department of Transportation, but Heroux said the group will continue to work with the agency on beautification.

In other efforts, the group has seen continued success in projects like its downtown cleanup, and installed planter boxes on Cedar and Ash streets. The group has as well been highlighting their improvements each week on KBSN radio and with its visionary awards given out once a month.

"We have so many irons in the fire right now," Heroux said. "What we need to do is focus on the projects we have now and get them figured out."

Heroux said the concepts the citizens group is working on are just trying to bring people back to the downtown area. He said the city has been extremely cooperative about the proposed plan, pitched by the citizens group.

"Our downtown needs help, it needs a boost, well, it needs help," Heroux said, "and we're modeling what we're doing from other communities from things that work."

He said some residents in the city have been resistant to downtown redevelopment, but said what the group is trying to do is something that has worked elsewhere. He said too that the ideas settled on have been massaged to make the redevelopment work.

"We're not trying to recreate the wheel," Heroux said. "We're trying to model Moses Lake after communities that work, at least their downtown area."

And while Vision 2020 is its own group, the incoming chair said its members are also members of each of the other major groups in town. Everyone's involvement, Heroux said, allows the members to both give support to other groups and get that support when needed.

Daschel said that support will come in her successor, who she said has been actively involved in the group and wants to get things done.

"He's a doer, not a talker, just gets things done," Daschel said.