A strong tax base is critical to ensuring that our community can thrive and meet the needs of current and future residents. There is great potential for Lakeside Park to be part of a thoughtful, forward-thinking strategy that supports a stronger tax base and allows the community the resources to preserve jewels like Lakeside Park and take care of and enhance other amenities very important to our quality of life.

Placemaking is a newer conversation that has been elevated in the economic development realm in recent years. It is quickly becoming a best practice for communities across the country. It is the intentional use of public spaces to facilitate recreation, commerce, gathering, and inclusion, and it’s proving critical to attraction and retention of needed talent. Re-evaluating the potential and future for Lakeside Park through this lens is very important.

What could we dream of, commit to, invest in, make a reality, if we think about Lakeside Park in this way? We would be able to meet the needs of current residents, attract new residents, and capture more visitors. This approach of enhancing visitor counts and use, collecting new dollars through commerce opportunities originally identified in the Exploratory Committee Recommendations, and leverage LP as a tool to increase residential growth would strengthen the tax base.

At Envision Greater Fond du Lac, we listen to our businesses and the overriding theme of what keeps them up at night is “can they get the talent needed to not only sustain operations but expand”?  The plan in front of us gives our community and businesses an incredible arrow in the quiver to show prospective employees that Fond du Lac is a great place to live and work.

Incorporating the $3.3 million set aside for the current pavilion into a visionary, multi-phase plan with components to attract private investment has the potential to set Lakeside Park and the community up for unprecedented opportunity and community pride.

Should the pavilion project continue as planned, we lose the chance to best leverage $3.3 million in public funding to attract that private investment.

This is a critical time for our city.  Enhancing Lakeside Park according to the 2015 Lakeside Park Exploratory Committee will add to the quality of life of residents and will help improve attraction and retention efforts for local businesses, thus adding to the economic viability of our community.

Today, private sector businesses have come together to help the Lakeside Park Exploratory Committees’ recommendations come to life.  They are providing our community with an incredible opportunity for a public/private partnership that is truly amazing and sure to be the envy of communities in Northeast WI.  The Supporters of Lakeside Park Exploratory Committee have gone to great lengths to make sure that we can have an enhanced park that captures the imagination of what can be while being very mindful of the beauty and history that is so important to many.

Envision Greater Fond du Lac encourages the Council to approve moving forward with this bold and transformative plan being presented.  To quote the LPEC report, “we have the opportunity to preserve the best of the history and traditions of Lakeside Park while charting a course for future generations.”

Contact your city council members today, and ask them to support the Master Plan.  Here is the link to their contact information.

– Envision Greater Fond du Lac Board of Directors

 

Sign the SLPEC Change.org petition to support the Lakeside Park Master Plan!