Community prosperity forum series ends in Libby

Roughly three dozen area residents made their way to the K.W. Maki Theatre in Libby Wednesday evening for the final installment in the community prosperity forum series. The event, sponsored by a number of local organizations, was intended to be a culmination of the previous eight forums and to provide a bridge between the discussions of the past and the action planning of the future.

“This is not a nuts and bolts planning session,” said Phil Hough, executive director of Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, who organized the session. “It’s the bridge between the conversations we’ve had and the planning stages.”

Hough brought Vicky Soderberg, a consultant with Cygnet Strategies, to Libby to help guide a discussion about “Building a Remarkable, Resilient Community.” The discussion, however, was markedly one-sided as Soderberg spoke for nearly two hours with very little audience interaction beyond simple answers to very basic questions about life in Libby and south Lincoln County.

Soderberg spent the majority of her presentation explaining the foundations of community development organizing. The three key elements, she said, are telling the community’s story, developing quantifiable and measurable goals and creating actions designed to reach those goals.

The story, she said, needs to be unique. It needs to reflect the true history and culture of the community. 

She told the story of a broadcast on National Public Radio, a segment in which four people from Calgary reminisced about a 30-year-old jingle about their home city they thought was unique. The interviewer, after hearing the memories from each of the four men, played the same jingle, except played with a different musical instrument and substituting a different city name in the place of Calgary.

“Be careful with what you think is truly unique,” she warned.

Ironically, the presentation, aside from one slide referencing asbestos, could have been given in any one of thousands of towns across America.

She presented examples of what she labeled “tactical urbanization,” different events and activities focused around the concept of generating fun activity in communities, but there was little discussion about how any of the ideas could be applied to the financially-challenged Libby community.

One participant asked how local events should be promoted, claiming the Libby Area Chamber of Commerce does little to promote events other than their own.

Chamber board president Robin Benson, who was in the audience, responded that the chamber has a community calendar on its website and welcomes event postings from any organization in the community, even groups not affiliated with, or members of, the chamber.

The forum, advertised as a culmination of the previous events and a bridge to the future, did not incorporate any of the previous discussions. 

“We will start by gathering on April 29 to discuss our community’s sense of place,” Hough said in an interview before the meeting.

Part of that sense of place, Soderberg said, comes from telling the community’s story, of defining the narrative of the area. The discussion then turned to branding, a term for which Soderberg expressed her displeasure.

“Your brand is what other people think you are, not what you tell them you are,” she said.

A participant then asked how the community is supposed to define its own story, if the brand is determined by the perceptions of the outside world, but no real answer was provided.

At the end of the presentation, Hough said another series will start up in the fall and that the discussions would continue outside the context of the forums.

“There are ongoing conversations about the next steps,” Hough said.

Details about those steps and conversations were not provided, although Molly “Montana” Kiernan, one of the event’s sponsors, said there is an exciting project being undertaken in Troy, but details are currently unavailable.