Wibaux, MT

CAN. Community Action Now. But in the case of WibauxCAN, it’s also Community Action Nextyear. WibauxCan’s grants are a success. Less than a month after announcing the grants recipients one project-painting a house-is completely finished and more are in the process. The finished project even came in under budget, so the unused money will be regranted during next year’s grant cycle. Yes, that’s right. Next year. The demand was so high that WibauxCAN will offer the opportunity for applications again next year. Community Action Now and Nextyear. Sometimes the sprucing up of a community just takes some tangible investment in people.

Community Change Project – The Federal Government gave the state millions of dollars to address the problem of drinking and driving through the lifespan and binge drinking with an emphasis on youth. No one in Wibaux would underwrite the project so because of Horizons, the school superintendent convinced the school board of the importance of this project and is serving as the fiscal agent. It has added another fulltime job to Wibaux and rented a building for this 3 ½ year grant. The ultimate goal is addressing the community norms of underage drinking. Wibaux County is part of a 5-county coalition working with Dawson, Richland, Roosevelt and Sheridan counties to affect community change.

Nowhere during Paul Lachapelle’s whirlwind tour of eastern MT did he have so many of the key leaders of a Horizons community represented. Paul was giving workshops on Montana Public Meeting laws and all who attended got “Serving on County Boards, Districts, Commissions and Committees in Montana: A Handbook for Members, Local Government Officials and Citizens”
In the small town of Wibaux on April 30th, 24 attended including all three commissioners, the mayor and town council member,fair board, new nominee for school board, Clerk & Recorder & Deputy, Clerk of Court, Historical Society, planning board, Disaster & Emergency Services and the newspaper editor who was well versed in public meeting law. The biggest concern was being sure not to make decisions without proper notification of meetings. We commend their interest in the training to prevent litigation or cause conflict — or maybe they came for the great lasagna for only $5!

Wibaux 7th and 8th graders helped the WibauxCAN (Community Action Now) committee design a logo. Ty Tousignant submitted the winning design, combining a W for Wibaux, with the school’s widely known longhorn mascot, as well as the CAN letters.

by Ginny Archdale

One of the highest priorities identified in the Horizons program survey was creating jobs and economic development in Wibaux. This also came up in study circles and leadership training segments. People were very positive about the idea of developing wind energy.

Wibaux County, the Eastern Plains RC & D, the Wibaux County Conservation District, and landowner Kory Scammon have partnered up to monitor wind data on a site southwest of Wibaux. This is the first step in determining whether a site is suitable for wind energy. Mike Carlson of the RC & D made arrangements for the county to borrow an 85-foot tower from a landowner in Jordan. The county paid for modifications to the tower and the county road crew helped Carlson put it up on a site that Scammon provided. Carlson also loaned the county an anemometer and data logger to put on the tower. Carlson has since retired, so the conservation district is now pulling the computer chip from the data logger periodically and sending it in to a state agency that then provides a report.

Data from the first three months was so positive that a wind development company put up its own 200 foot monitoring tower a half mile south of the first one.

Since August of 2007, the average wind speed at the site has been just over 17 miles per hour, and efficiency (how often wind would be adequate to produce energy) is above the 40 percent companies want to see. Overall, Carlson has described the site as rating about 6 ½ on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the best.

However, most companies want to see at least a year, and maybe two years, worth of data before developing a site.

by Ginny Archdale

The bathrooms in Wibaux’s city park are so icky little kids run across the street to the neighbor’s houses to use the potty rather than use the city ones.

City Council asked R & R Construction to draw up plans and submit a quote to build two new handicapped bathrooms in unused space within the existing park building. Last week, the council agreed to accept those plans and R & R’s quote. The Wibaux County Commissioners also have agreed to share part of the cost of the project.

R & R plans to begin work on the new bathrooms later this summer.

by Ginny Archdale

Horizons funds are providing the stimulus for development of a Wibaux housing plan.
The Wibaux Horizons steering committee offered the Town of Wibaux $3500 from its coaching funds to hire outside expertise to conduct a structural inventory of Wibaux housing and analyze market conditions. These are the major components of a housing plan, which is the first step in seeking grants to fix up existing housing, remove blight, or build new low-income units.

With that offer on the table, the Town of Wibaux advertised for Requests for Proposals from community development consultants. At its May 14 meeting, the Town Council opened one proposal, from Single Tree Consulting of Bridger, Montana. Julie Jones of Single Tree proposes to develop a Wibaux housing plan at a cost of $5000. If the plan then leads to CDBG and HOME grant applications, additional funds will be needed to write and manage the grants.

The Town Council took Single Tree’s proposal under advisement, in order to check it over carefully, but it looks like the town will be moving forward with a housing plan. The Wibaux City-County Planning Board has agreed to contribute $1000 toward the plan, and the Town of Wibaux would contribute $500.

by Ginny Archdale

Sometimes it’s easy to be discouraged about the run-down buildings and yards that aren’t being mowed around town. You know – the glass is half empty attitude.

But then I look around and am amazed at all the hard work and pride that goes into the majority of properties in town. We have some very pretty yards. Right now, most lawns are green and freshly mowed. Wild plum trees, chokecherry trees, apple trees, current bushes, tulips and lilacs are starting to bloom. It’s really pretty out.

The black-headed grosbeaks that nest in my yard each summer just returned. Those pretty red-headed house finches are singing away from the tree tops, and robins follow me around the garden looking for worms. We have terrific bird habitat in Wibaux.
The glass really is more than half full.

It was an empowering and humbling experience. Several people from the WibauxCAN Committee (Community Action Now), met to review the subcommitee’s grant award suggestions. Over $16,000 of requests for just $2000 worth of grant money. The committee had obviously hit upon a need.

The grants were for property beautification: clean-up and fix-up. Making Wibaux an attractive place to live, one that speaks of the pride that residents have in their town was one of of the most important goals expressed by the people involved in the Study Circles.

WibauxCAN, in reaction to the Study Circle’s #1 subject, community beautification, conducted the grant funding cycle.

The single round of grants were for a total of $2000. But because of the overwhelming number of applications for money, the committee elected to nearly double the money available.

Empowering: we could help; help the individuals and help the community. Humbling. there wasn’t enough money–even with doubling the available funds. Choices would have to be made.

Winners? The community. Those funded. And those not funded. Their needs were defined, the cost estimated. They were ready for what WibauxCAN hopes will be round two.

The town of Wibaux’s population was listed as 567 in the 2000 census. It’s gone nothing but down since then. Genny Archdale, town clerk said there were 119 deaths last year and only about a third of that in births. “The sad part is I was at almost every one of those funerals,” she lamented. The population is aging with the population over 65 at 26.8% according to the 2000 census compared to 12.4% nationally. The county poverty level is 15.3% and $16,162 per capita income. 113 of the 243 households had an income under $25,000 in 2000.

NOTE: To correct an earlier posting error in this entry, regarding Wibaux’s population, the Montana Department of Commerce’s Census and Economic Information Center has a good web site with lots of information on state and local population estimates. It is http://ceic/mt.gov/Demog/estimate/pop/County/CO-EST2007-04-30.xls. According to that website, Wibaux County lost 170 people between April 1, 2000 and July 1, 2007. It had 118 deaths and 47 births for a net natural increase of minus 71, and a net migration loss of 96. I would suppose that most of the net migration loss is due to high school seniors graduating and leaving home.

82 houses or 25% of the housing were vacant, mostly uninhabitable or undesirable by the families they hope would settle here and populate the schools. Wibaux is a great place to raise a family with schools and churches and friendly folks and a great football tradition listed as strengths, but without housing, or lots with infrastructure, it’s near impossible to draw in families. They hope to use Horizons funds to hire experienced help to apply for housing grants.