Mark Peterson, left, and Tony O’Donnell, right, were two of the people who offered ideas during a special meeting held in Winnebago to discuss the city’s future. The City Council will take up the matter at their next meeting.

Ideas and feedback were both plentiful at the “Planning For Winnebago’s Future” Special City Council meeting on March 25, as several members of the Winnebago community came together to discuss what future projects they wanted to see the city undertake in coming years.

“Tonight, I want us to focus on what we do have in our city, rather than what we lack,” Winnebago mayor Jean Anderson said. “This meeting is meant to not only ask the question of why someone should come to Winnebago, but also what we can do – both as a city and as a community – to make someone want to stay here.”

Anderson emphasized that this meeting was critical to deciding the future of Winnebago, as the city could very easily fall into obscurity if a priority plan was not made for the coming years.

“Where do we want Winnebago to be in three, five, 10 years?” Anderson asked. “The small towns of yesterday don’t exist anymore. We don’t want to turn our city into just another drive-by town on the highway.”

Council member Tony O’Donnell affirmed Anderson’s statements, adding that it was important for the City Council and the community to work together when planning for the city’s future.

“Running a city is like running a business – it takes time, money, effort, and people,” O’Donnell said. “It really is a group effort, and we need your support in deciding where we want this city to go in the coming years.”

Following these statements by the City Council, the floor was opened for public comments and ideas. A topic of immediate interest was the restoration of the business facades along Main Street, which several residents voiced support for.

“An update to the storefronts along Highway 169 would be a really welcome change from what we have now,” community member Mark Peterson commented. “At the very least, we should make it look like we have something going on here.”

Further support for the beautification of Winnebago was voiced by Nicole Krienke, library director of the Muir Library.

“Our town has a lot of assets – a pool, the parks, the library, a grocery store, a bowling alley – but a lot of people don’t know that,” Krienke remarked. “From the outside, it looks like there’s nothing to stop here for, and I want us to change that.”

CEDA representative Dave Schmidt offered some pushback on the issue of cleaning up Main Street, citing the lack of response the city has had in attempting to contact many of the business owners there.

“We’ve mailed out letters, we’ve sent emails, we’ve called people – nothing. Nobody has responded to our inquiries,” Schmidt explained. “I do agree that Main Street desperately needs some updates, but we don’t currently have the permission to do so.”

In response to this, several citizens suggested that a more personal approach might be what was needed to get in touch, with many citing that they personally knew some of the business owners on Main Street and could talk to them about the issue in-person.

Another popular suggestion at the meeting regarded the lack of events to draw people to town, and the desire to host more events throughout the year to get people excited about coming to Winnebago.

“Back in the old days, the museum here in town would host some sort of event every month, and it was the place to be every Friday night,” community member Millie Hanson recalled. “If we could start something like that again – hosting an event of some kind every month – I think that would do a lot.”

Community member Bret Osborn agreed with the sentiment, but reminded the assembly of the city’s failure to keep past events running.

“I helped my dad out with Moto Fest since I was in diapers, but after the last group of people stopped running it, it never got picked up by the next generation,” Osborn explained. “If we want to have events like that, we need people to run them, and we need support from the city to keep them alive.”

Former Winnebago mayor Scott Robertson, who was in attendance at the meeting, agreed with Osborn’s sentiment, citing burnout as a persistent issue.

“People run out of energy supporting community events after a while,” Robertson said. “Events like Bago Fun Fest and Frosty Fest are a lot of work, and without a consistent group to keep them alive, people lose their enthusiasm for planning and hosting them.”

Council member Calvin Howard suggested that the city consider hiring a paid part-time event coordinator to assist with planning future events and coming up with new ones.

“This person might not be present at every meeting, but having someone on board who can keep our event planning organized and coordinated would be a huge help,” Howard explained. “Having someone who knows what’s going on and can keep the community involved would be a good idea if we want to add more events.”

Another community member brought up the issue of advertising these events to the public, stating that “even when I was talking to people about tonight’s meeting, over half of them didn’t know about it.”

Council member Paul Eisenmenger agreed with the sentiment, adding that the city’s lack of advertising was an issue that needs to be rectified.

“Nobody knows we’re here because there’s no signage or advertising,” Eisenmenger commented. “How is anyone going to find out about us if we don’t promote ourselves?”

CEDA representative Macey Becker suggested that a monthly email newsletter could be a solution to the lack of inter-community communication, a sentiment which Blue Earth Community Library director Heidi Schutt agreed with.

“The Muir Library has had a very successful email newsletter, so much so that I decided to start one for Blue Earth as well,” Schutt shared. “It’s very easy to find software to send mass emails these days, and you can even see the statistics of how many people interact with them.”

Community members also suggested updating the city’s Facebook page and website more regularly to more accurately reflect the event schedule and keep the city updated.

A final suggestion brought up for consideration was the need for additional housing and residential space in Winnebago, which council member Eisenmenger and mayor Anderson both agreed with.

“There’s a need for housing, and we have the space to build here,” Eisenmenger said. “Townhomes in Mankato are filling up with residents before they even get built. There are definitely contractors willing to build something like that here; we just need to reach out and let them know we have the space and demand for it.”

“Multi-level townhomes are difficult for older people to navigate, but if we could get some single-level properties built in town, younger folks could move into the multi-level properties that open up,” Anderson suggested. “Even something small like an eight-unit townhome would be a start.”

As the meeting wound down, a community member reminded the council that rebuilding a community is a group effort, and several others voiced that they would like some method of holding the City Council accountable for funding and achieving these plans.

“Attending City Council meetings is a good way to keep up to date on what’s going on here, and these ideas will definitely be discussed at our next meeting on April 8,” Anderson said. “If we need to do more special council meetings like this to go over the priority plan schedule and keep track of what we’ve accomplished here in Winnebago, both right now and into the coming years, we can absolutely do that.”