Event held to help plan Rib Lake’s future

Rib Lake’s future is on the discussion table.

On June 3, 40 residents of Rib Lake met with members of the Rib Lake Community Development Foundation and Jenny Polacek, architect from the project’s contracted firm Wendel, to talk about reinvigorating Rib Lake. Main Street and the waterfront are the focus areas of the Rib Lake Community Development Foundation’s Vision Plan.

Polacek currently lives in the Eau Claire area, but she grew up in Rib Lake. She described the difference between the Rib Lake of her childhood and the one she sees now, expressing how she wants to work with the community to revitalize the village.

“My takeaway from this evening’s events was that there’s a lot of dedicated community members that want to see improvements to the Main St. and the waterfront, and the feedback we received tonight is really integral to us in our next steps with the vision planning. So all really really positive feedback with what we are trying to do here,” Polacek said after the event.

The meeting was open to any member of the public. Residents were invited to attach sticky notes with problems they see in Rib Lake on one board and place sticky notes with their ideas for Rib Lake’s future on another.

Overwhelmingly, community members expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of a grocery store in Rib Lake. Other consensus concerns were about run-down businesses on Main St. and a lack of affordable housing.

As far as ideas to improve Rib Lake, residents called for tighter enforcement of yard cleanup, a soccer field, and more activities using the lake.

In addition providing feedback on the two boards with sticky notes, residents marked tallies next to images of developments that they would like to see happen. The images with the most votes were of housing structures, a revamped Main St., and a grocery store.

“Next steps, we will take the information gathered tonight back and review it as a team, and we develop a conceptual vision plan that we will present to the Rib Lake Community Development Foundation, and [with] any feedback from them from that point, we will then finalize the vision plan and have that available over Ice Age weekend,” Polacek stated.

A vision plan is not a commitment to building or changing anything. Its purpose is to prompt thought about how Rib Lake can be improved and to create a representation of those ideas. The plan will be shown to potential businesses and residents to demonstrate Rib Lake’s potential.

To provide input on the vision plan, email RibLakeCDF@gmail.com or contact @Rib Lake Community Development Foundation on Facebook.